“One day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn’t become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered.”

Date Completed: April 29 2016
Page Length: 352
Goodreads

*Spoilers may lie ahead*

As Tim Burton’s next blockbuster slated for release in September this year it’s hard to read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (MPHfPC) with out knowing something about it already. Either you’ve watched the trailer (below) or you’ve read an article about which came first; the photos or the story. I’d somehow done both, and while it didn’t stop me from enjoying the book all together it may have diminished it slightly. I couldn’t help feel certain moments were just well constructed set-ups for a well loved image, or question why the girls with one peculiarity was doing this when in the trailer she was doing the other thing.

In adaptation theory it’s called being a ‘knowing’ reader, although that usually applies to someone who has read the book before seeing the film. More and more often it seems to apply to the opposite; reading the book after watching the film. I did so with The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I have often found myself, as in this case, doing something in between; watching the trailer, reading the book and then watching the movie.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with either order, stories are always good, and it’s often fascinating to see how different mediums (or even the same medium) tackle the same one.