The Book Forums

I had to sit and think about this one for a day, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it did the book justice. I’m just going to say it now, if you want a 100% faithful adaptation, this is not the one for you. Honestly, a lot is different, but that is not always a bad thing. The main difference is the time line and how that affects certain aspects of the story. The novel takes place over the course of one night with Clay listening to the tapes rather quickly, the movie takes place in at least a week and Clay listens to the tapes really slowly. This extended timeline allows the viewer to see Clay actually interacting with other people on the tapes. It also gives the viewer a chance to see how the tapes are affecting Clay long term. About halfway through the show, Clay looks rough so you really understand what the tapes are doing to him. But the great thing is that you also get insight into how the tapes have affected everyone else on them, since the POV often switches from fo...

I was casually scrolling through Netflix the other day when I stumbled on a Maximum Ride movie. I vaguely remembered hearing about the movie a while ago, but hadn’t hear anything recently so I was curious. Max Ride was a big part of my middle school (I read seven of the many books) and the movie was only an hour and a half so I had to check it out. I wasn’t expecting anything from the movie, and I guess I wasn’t disappointed… but I wasn’t impressed either. As a previous fan of the books, Max Ride brought to light many of the issues with the book series. I have to wonder what James Patterson was thinking when he decided to call the secret experiment lab “the school” and the evil monsters “Erasers”. Neither of those are particularly threatening names for villainous characters and places. Fang failed to live up to his name in the movie. If one’s name is Fang, I feel they need to be the most angst filled person ever, and movie Fang was actually a pretty cool, levelheaded guy— I ...

Guess who finally got off her lazy butt and did something… MEEE! :) I read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children a few years ago and, although the book was tedious at the beginning, I enjoyed it. When I heard about the movie coming out I was curious, especially when I heard Tim Burton was directing it. However, I didn’t plan on going out of my way to see the movie until I heard that it goes into the plot of, not only the first book, but also the second and third books. After becoming more interested in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children , I finally checked it out this weekend and… I really enjoyed it! Probably what surprised me the most is how accurate to the book the film was. I was expecting changes going in since I knew ahead of time that Emma’s peculiarity would be changed, but that was one of the biggest changes. With that said, I found that change odd, since it basically switched Emma and Olive’s peculiarities. Both characters still existed and served ...

It’s January so you know what that means… TV SHOW PREMIERES! Just to get it out of the way, This post will only be about shows that had a new season premiere in January— yes Flash and Arrow came back on but middle of the season episodes are going to be structured differently than a season premiere. SHADOWHUNTERS Let’s get this one out of the way first! I had EXTREMELY low hopes for Shadowhunters mostly because it is on ABC Family (*clears throat* Oh sorry Freeform…) and that station isn’t really known for Fantasy. I was worried about the CGI and the fact that most TV studios don’t have the budget to pull something based in fantasy like The Mortal Instruments off and not make it look cheesy. The Flash looks insanely cheesy at times but it WORKS because the show KNOWS it’s cheesy and jokes about it. The show doesn’t go for a serious tone but sadly Shadowhunters does. Even then, the CGI is not my biggest problem with Shadowhunters (I can actually look past it pretty easi...

Studio Producers have still not realized that splitting finales into two parts does not increase the quality of the movie— but it does increase the money in their pocket! And that’s why they’re going to keep doing it. The finale for The Hunger Games series finally here with a strong... meh! The trailers made Mockingjay Part 2 look intense and like a strong finale but the movie itself sort of fell flat. Parts were intense but the intensity falls apart by coincidences, plot holes, and characters acting out of character as soon as you started thinking about it. As soon as Mockingjay started it wasted no time letting the audience know that it would be making Gale into a war hungry butt-face. The book made this same choice but no one I know is a fan of that choice so translating it so faithfully to the screen was not the best choice. It makes me question if the rebels are letting this war get to them or not and if some of them truly had the right intentions. And I feel that was th...

HELLO! My fellow readers! Today instead of the usual Goodreads Monday post and talking about books that I haven’t read, I am going to show off a book that I have read! When I was looking through my Goodreads list to find a book to talk about today Me and Earl and the Dying Girl really stood out as a book that I’m still thinking about! Both the book and the movie were superb, with great characters, and unique storytelling! Jesse Andrew has such a quirky since of humor that comes out great in both the book and the movie (which was WRITTEN by him). Due to Jesse Andrews writing the screenplay, the  spirit  and themes of the book were captured SO WELL in the movie and it made a great experience for both fans of the book and movie fans alike. If you haven’t checked out Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (the book or the movie), you should go out right now and read/ watch it! You won’t regret it! Keep Reading… Meagan!

So yesterday I finally got the chance to see Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ! I’ve been looking forward to this movie ever since I saw the trailer. After the trailer got me interested I read the book which was great and I’m glad I read it! (You can find that review HERE). Then the author (Jesse Andrews), the director (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon), and the two lead actors (Thomas Mann and Olivia Cooke) were at BookCon! I went to that panel and it was GREAT! Making me even more excited to see the movie! So now I’ve finally seen Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and… it was AMAZING! It captures the spirit of the book in the characters and taking the best parts of the books and leaving out what didn’t work as well. The movie stays faithful to the book in the spirit of the character and how they talk and act. It changes some things towards the end but I think that was for the better! The changes flowed well in the story making me more of a fan of the ending. The acting and the directing was al...

Hey guys. I just got back from seeing Insurgent so you know what that means; it’s time for a review! This one is going to be pretty quick because I felt like this movie was pretty ehh. I might rewatch it one day but I won’t be rushing to rewatch it. The action in the movie looked a lot better than it did in the trailer, and the simulations looked neat (the terrible green screen aside), but sadly the characters were one dimensional and the secondary characters said all of two words. As I was saying above, the action actually looked pretty good and kept me interested. Some of the scenes could’ve actually been intense, but this leads to the problem that I didn’t care about any of the characters. All the characters were just one dimensional and had no personality. I didn’t get attached to any of them so when something almost happened to a character, I couldn’t bring myself to care too much. And the secondary characters said about two lines in the whole movie! I was so excited to ...

We all have those favorite books that get turned it movies. You hear about the movie, you hold out hope that it’ll be good, but when you go see it; you are hopelessly disappointed. That has fueled my idea for a discussion today; books turned movies that deserve a second chance to be a better movie. Percy Jackson So I’m starting this one off with the obvious answer. These are fun adventure books with a great story and even better characters! The series also has a built-in fan base so it’s guaranteed to make money (and you know what executives what… MONEY MONEY MONEY!). Now the built-in fan base could’ve been the movie’s down fall to begin with because Hollywood thought, Hey! People already like this! They’ll see it whether it’s good or bad! We don’t have to put any effort into this! But if Hollywood put the effort into making a Percy Jackson movie, it could definitely be good! City of Bones My next pick should be obvious for any fans of this series. While the City of Bon...