I think the only memorable moment I had about this book was buying it only for someone to nag about not purchasing the sequel as well. I've been burned by hypes before so I'm not one for impulse buying and I'm glad that I listen to myself. This series do come with a cautionary tale; if you are a fan of horror YA, this would be a disappointment. 
 I am still on the fence about the book although the story does build up good around Jacob's grandfather, it was interesting to learn about children of WWII. But the narrative soon shifted to focus on Jacob which dampened my enthusiasm. Jacob is an semi-average teenage boy with a complicated relationship with his family and need occasional psychiatric evaluation because his grandfather like to tell him fantastic stories about weird kids in his past. Then something happened to his grandfather and he saw something horrifying which send him on a downward spiral. His psychiatrist advised that he might get his closure and off Jacob and his father to UK. 
 Jacob found the remnant of the orphanage of his grandfather's past. But it turned out that the children of his grandfather's stories and pictures were real and alive and they're trapped in a time loop for decades as children. Jacob met with his grandfather's teenage sweetheart and develop some feelings for her. He get to know of the children and their peculiarity. Then he learn about the things that wanted them dead. 
 It does have an interesting premise but I was around 80% of the book by the time I felt the story finally pick up the pace. I began to realize the author does great in dialogues but does poorly in descriptive writing. So it does get repetitive when the illustration didn't add to the writing but rather as a visual aid to compensate a lack of imagination. 
 And then the problem of having a collection of character with poor and little development alocate to each of them. I find the Grandfather and Dad was the only ones that have decent relationship and depth but Jacob and the peculiar characters were all bland. Emma is a manic pixie dream girl solely created to provide Jacob the necessary emotional attachment and curiously enough her characterization was drowned into the backdrop of the narrative. Despite initial hints of spunkiness, she stopped being her own character and from Jacob's grandfather's ex, she became Jacob's girl for the remainder of the story, occasionally offering some companionship and exposition when she needed to be. Even the romance lack chemistry. 
 Since I know that Tim Burton had done several major changes to the adaptation particularly on changing several character's peculiarity, so I have some hope that the movie would alter some of its plot and pacing and make it enjoyable enough even if the novel itself was lacking and unimaginative.