This is a story about a boy named Jacob who can see and speak to invisible monsters called
hollowgast.
Jacob’s friends have been taken by wights, a group of evolved hollowgast who are capturing
as many peculiar people as they can.
Emma, a girl who can control fire, and Addison, a talking dog, work together with Jacob to
figure out where the children were taken.
With the help of a boatsman named Sharon, the group carefully travels to Devil’s Acre
in London, a hidden slum where peculiar outlaws hide and home to the wights.
The group is harassed by pirates and followed by a certain hollowgast that only Jacob can
talk to.
They outrun the pirates and hollowgast, and the hollowgast is injured in the process.
Sharon promises to help Jacob and Emma find their friends, but Jacob and Emma wander down
Louche Lane, a street lined with businesses that sell peculiars as slaves.
Jacob, Emma, and Addison spot the wights’ fortress, but can't get there because the
bridge to the fortress is incomplete.
A group of peculiars attacks them, but Sharon and his cousins save them, while Addison sneaks
on a truck that enters the wights’ fortress.
Jacob and Emma recover at the house of a man named Bentham, a collector of peculiar things
and brother to Miss Peregrine, a powerful peculiar and headmistress to Jacob and his
friends, and Jack, the leader of the wights.
Bentham explains that Jack has been obsessed with finding the mythical library of souls,
a special time loop where peculiars supposedly check out their supernatural abilities before
dying.
Bentham further explains that he tried to stop Jack and his supporters in the past from
finding the library and stealing the abilities by indirectly causing the explosion that turned
them into hollowgasts.
In order to rescue Jacob’s friends, Bentham suggests that they use the Panloopticon, a
machine that contains unique doors to time loops across the world, one of which is to
a door inside the wights’ fortress.
The machine doesn't work and the only way to fix it is for Jacob to bring back the injured
hollowgast that was chasing them earlier.
Jacob rescues the hollowgast from a cage fight, but it suffers a bad wound during the fight.
After the hollowgast recovers at Bentham’s mansion, it is strapped into a chamber and
powers the Panloopticon, which allows Jacob and Emma to sneak into the wights’ fortress.
There, they meet up with the other peculiar children and the other headmistresses, including
Miss Peregrine.
However, Jack, who is made known of Jacob’s presence in the fortress, offers to spare
everyone if Jacob would surrender himself.
Jacob refuses and Jack releases a hollowgast to attack the headmistresses.
Jacob assumes control of the hollowgast and discovers that his peculiar ability to control
hollowgasts is getting stronger, allowing him to control a dozen of them at once.
Led by Jacob and the hollowgasts, the children escape the fortress and decide to fight the
wights.
The children seem to be winning the fight with the help of the hollowgasts, but an explosion
kills off most of the hollowgasts and the tide of the fight turns in favor of the wights.
Bentham appears with his bear and most of the wights are killed or captured.
All seems to be well, but Miss Peregrine accuses Bentham of betraying them all having extracted
part of Jacob’s grandfather’s peculiar soul many years ago, which prompts Bentham
to storm off.
Jack then appears with Bentham, who did in fact betray them by capturing Miss Peregrine.
Jack leads the children to the Library of Souls, where they find a large series of caverns
full of invisible stone jars with peculiar abilities.
Once Jacob helps Jack identify a jar containing a powerful peculiar soul, Jack shoots him,
but Jacob’s bulletproof scarf saves him.
Jack empowers himself with a strong peculiar soul and begins to grow.
The children try to fight Jack, but he is too strong for them.
Bentham instructs Jacob and Miss Peregrine that while he’s going to stay and fight
Jack, they should close the loop to lock them in forever.
Bentham empowers himself with a powerful peculiar soul and he and Jack begin to fight.
The headmistresses enchant the time loop and everyone escapes as the time loop closes behind
them, trapping Jack and Bentham.
After capturing any surviving wights, the headmistresses and children use Bentham’s
mansion to recover.
Emma and Jacob discuss their relationship, deciding to just be friends because Jacob
has to go back to his own time.
Jacob goes back through the time loop and is reunited with his parents, who send him
to therapy.
Jacob and Emma exchange letters, but Jacob’s parents confront him about the letters and
decide to commit him to an asylum.
In the end, just as Jacob is being driven to the asylum, Miss Peregrine and the children
appear, proving to Jacob’s parents that he isn’t crazy.