The entire book starts with what I assume is Jake’s inner voice contemplating and assessing everything that happened during his childhood and how he grew up. About how his grandfather told these crazy stories about all the adventures and people he has meet under his troubled childhood and how he fled the monsters in poland. Jake slowly realises that his grandfather lived during the second world war and that the monsters he fled from were Nazis. 

In his younger teens Jake no longer believes in the stories that his grandfather told and he now assumes that his Grandfather came up with these unbelievable and  mildly disturbing stories to cope with his traumatic past. Jake calls his grandpa to make sure that he has taken his medication for the day but is only meet with this Grandpa’s frantic behaviour about that the monsters are coming and that he needs his weapons, something which Jake’s dad made sure he will not be able to get ahold of. Jake arrives with his friend at his grandpa’s house and enters upon arrival, while inside the house he sees enormous slices in the patio screen door and realises the potential danger of this situation. 

Jake’s friend grabs his shotgun and goes with Jake into the forest behind his grandfather's house. Jake finds his grandpa in the mud but he is barely breathing, with his last gasp of air he tells Jake that its utmost important that he finds the bird. Jake sees the monster his grandpa has been talking about and realises that he was always throughout his entire childhood been telling him the truth. 

no one believes Jake when he tells them about the monsters and his grandpa’s final words. Everyone around Jake assumes that the so called monsters are just a fit of his imagination trying to grasp the reality of his grandfather’s death but Jake knows otherwise. Jake is forced to meet weekly with a therapeutic doctor to talk about his problems and how they are going to deal with them. 

Even though Jake begs his parents not to throw him a birthday party this year, he parents still do believing that it will in some way be helpful but also for his mom to have the chance to show everyone the new add-on for the house. Jake received 3 gifts at his birthday party and the most important one is the present from his grandpa/aunt. He has been given a book with his name inside and suddenly realises that his grandpa’s last words were actually not insane and that the bird is actually a real person and not a location or someone close by. 

After a bit of research Jake makes the conclusion that there's an Island of the coast of Scotland where his grandpa was taken during his childhood. This is where he supposedly meet the people whose picture has been shown to Jake countless of times during his childhood. He convinces his parents to let him take a trip to Europe to further his investigation into his grandpa’s finale words.

The trip to the Island is extremely long and on the last stretch of the trip, Jake notices something poking out of the water. The sailor explains to Jake and his dad that this Island has an huge amount of sunken ships surrounding it, which could make up half an navy. The island is meant to be a sailor's nightmare by day and night. 
The island is very rural and has all its electricity produced from on site diesel generators which shut off after 22:00 making the island dark as night. Jake and his father finds shelter in a local pub where they live for the reminder of their trip at the island. The local pub is also the only place with a telephone, making it the most connected point on the island. The Island housed a military artillery piece during the war, which resulted in the island becoming an actual military target as if that mattered to the germans. 

After asking around for clues about his grandfather’s past life on the Island and taking a look at the 2000 year old boy preserved by the bog, Jake enlist help to locate the Orphans home where his Grandfather lived out a lot of his early life during the war. Upon arriving at the Orphans home Jake is able to take in what really happened and that miss p is no more, even though his grandfather had gotten an letter sent 15 years ago. Miss p and the other children have supposedly perished in an Air raid carried out by a german bomber plane in the days of the war, where an direct hit was scored on the orphanage. 

Jake does not give up easily and returns a day later to keep exploring the abandoned and run down orphanage for clues to his grandfather's past life. After a bit of exploring and hard work searching the dust filled wreckage, Jake finally stumbles upon a trunk with a rusty padlock. Jake puts an enormous amount of effort into opening the Trunk and drops it from the second story of the house, effectively breaking the trunk and the floorboards on the first floor. The trunk and its contents is dumped into the basement by the hard fall from the second story. 

After spending a short while investigating the contents of the trunk, Jake suddenly hears a voice and footsteps on the first floor and his legs become numb. After a little while he sees the faces of the kids which photographs lies before him peering down towards him from the first floor. Jake attempts to talk to them but his jaw has frozen and the children suddenly run away after realising that it is not Abe. 

Jake follows a girl dressed in white into the woods, he tries to catch up to her but all his attempts are futile, instead he follows her footprints into a small underground storage but upon his surprise it is empty. When jake returns to the surface he suddenly finds himself in a time seeming like summer, what Jake does not know is that he has been teleported back in time to 3rd of september 1940. Jake tries to gather himself in the priest hole but its inhabitants believe he is an nazi spy out to get him and they chase after him. He is caught by Emma, the girl dressed in white and later he meets millard, the invisible boy. They help jake escape but Emma takes him “prisoner” and brings him with them towards the house. 

When jake arrives to the house he notices the enormous differences between his timeline and this loop. The house is not run down, hidden by the forest and the chimneys are once again reaching for the skies. Emma binds Jake’s hands together behind his back and calls upon Miss peregrine that the “Prisoner” has arrived. Miss P is visibly angered when she says the state that Jake is presented in and demands that Emma unbinds him immediately. Jake takes a bit of time explaining to Miss Peregrine about what happened and the life his grandfather lived. 

It’s time for Miss Peregrine to answer the dozen of questions that Jake wants answered and they make their way up to the classroom. Miss peregrine presents Jake with an photo album and a bundle of stories explaining how loops work and the different kind of humans. 

Jake stays for dinner and gets to experience the reseting off the loop, right when the bomb is about to explode and kill them all the loop resets and this has been going on since the second world war. Jake is scared at first but then realises what a surreal experience it has been. Finally Jake returns home back to his own timeline

Jake returns to the loop and is greeted by Emma, she hurries them along to the house like they are late for an appointment. Jake gets to watch while some of the children perform amazing feats such as lifting a gigantic boulder like its nothing, growing flowers out of nowhere and so on. 

The older children and Jake go out for a swim at the harbor and they spend almost the entire day switching between sunbathing and swimming in the sea. Jake has started to flirt with Emma and convinces her to come with him for a minute to outside the loop, so Jake can take her picture. Jake goes home and is confronted by his dad, 5 sheep have been killed on the Island and the locals suspect youngsters. 

When Jake arrives to the loop on the next day hes not greeted by anyone by the cairn and he slowly makes his way to the house. Miss P takes time out of her day to talk with Jake about telling the kids about the future and how it will have a bad impact on them. 

He searches for Emma but shes out on a supply run, he does meet Enoch a kid who can take life and give it to others. He also meets Victor, but he is dead in this loop and can only be revived for a little while by Enoch. Jake snoops around in Emma’s stuff looking at the letters his grandpa sent, after being caught red handed by Emma he says some bullshit to avoid kissing her.

Jake plots with Emma to meet later tonight and talk about the past and the future, they spend the rest of the day pretending like everything is normal. Jake returns at night time and Emma meets him outside the cairn. Emma tells them that they can’t talk here and for Jake to follow her and so he does.

They arrive at the beach and row out to sea, there they go inside of a sunken allied warship and Emma performs a trick with flashlight fish. When they arrive on the surface again they kiss for a while and Emma reveals the truth about Jake, that he is indeed a peculiar child like they all are. They are greeted by Hugh and he tells them to hurry back its serious

They arrive to see the frail figure of Miss peregrine’s old teacher, she can barely speak and doesn't even remotely resemblance her former self. Jake talks briefly with Miss p about the anger and about Abe’s life after leaving the loop.

When all the children have finally gone to bed and everything has calmed down Miss peregrine takes time to explain to Jake about hollowgasts and wights. Jake is scared shitless but also understands the seriousness of this situation and the possibility that they might be coming for him and Miss peregrine’s peculiar children