Ms. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Reviewing all 3 types of media.

A review of the 3 forms of media Miss Peregrine's home for Peculiar Children can be consumed in.
Story by Ransom Riggs
Review by Emily Shunk.

If you can't tell already, I'm quickly running out of blog post ideas. I've read all of the books of this series (I'm going to shorten the name to Miss Peregrine's because seriously the name is ridiculously long to repetitively use throughout this post), I've seen the movie, and I've even read the first two graphic novels of the series. For the purposes of comparison, I'll be shortening my review to only include coverage of the first book, or I guess movie. Besides- I've at this point forgotten the 3rd book to its entirety. Keep in mind that for a large part, I haven't seen the movie or read the books for quite some time.

Basic story-
Jacob's grandfather dies under peculiar circumstances. Jacob is concerned for good reason, when the monster in the woods that took his grandfather's eyes and killed him, is considered to be just some wild animal to everyone else around them. Jacob begins to investigate his grandfather's life, of which he has heard magical stories about as a child, to which he discovers a reference to a small island in wales. He convinces his father to take him to the island, where he discovers a house with many peculiar children stuck in a time loop- where one day is repeated for eternity. Miss Peregrine runs the home, and as her name suggests she has the ability to transform into a bird. Among the peculiar children is Olive, who can fly, Emma, who can manipulate fire, Enoch, who can resurrect the dead, among several others. The children hide away from the Hollows, who hunt them down. Jacob discovers that he is the only one able to see the Hollows, which is why he was able to see the one who killed his grandfather. Jacob forms a romantic relationship with Emma, who was previously dating his grandfather. (just why? why would you do that?). Eventually, they are forced to leave the safety of the house and must constantly escape the hollows in order to survive.

Now that you have the basic story- I'll get to the comparison. The basic story is based on the book- of course.

Movie- Oh god. You see- as a stand alone movie- this is fine. If you were not aware of the book- this would be fine. Except- I had previously read the book. Of the most obnoxious of the creative liberties taken with this movie- (and quite fortunately the only one I properly remember)- Is the switching of Emma and Olive. In the book- Emma can manipulate fire, and is the one dating Jacob throughout the series. However- in the movie- Emma is the one who can fly and is dating Jacob. of course, it's basically like they switched the character's names and also made the flying girl date Jacob instead. Absolutely why would you do that? It's infuriating to someone who actually knows the proper character's names, and made the first time I saw the movie extremely confusing as to who is actually Emma and who is Olive. Other than that, I'd say the movie had a good style relevant to the story, overall not too bad. I liked the color choices and the character decisions that were made (I have put aside the Olive/Emma thing for that part). That and they changed the ending a lot so they wouldn't have to end it on a cliffhanger...

Graphic novel- Not too bad. Honestly, I don't think it was necessary. It can be frustrating to have a graphic novel as it changes what you pictured, and I always like to take my own creative liberty to imagine the characters as I choose. I think the book was fine, the movie was a bit much, and the graphic novel was just over the top. I think 3 types of media for one story is a little ridiculous.

Overall, I like this story. I don't know why whoever thought it was necessary to have 3 forms of the story available thought it was indeed necessary. Overall, I'd say the graphic novel is ok. However, under no circumstances should you watch the movie AND read the books. Bad idea my friends. I'd of course recommend the books, as it's the best way to consume a book and there's all 3 available! With that- I bid you a good rest of your quarantine.