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| Source: LitStack |
So I was going to finish writing up another review, but I changed my mind. Instead, I want to discuss something that I feel has been on the up and up lately, though it's been around for decades: movie adaptations. Not only that, but the effect that they have on potential readers and in recent times we've seen it become more and more of a thing: to read the book before the movie.
This concept is far from new. And I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I'll refuse to watch some movies before I've gone through the book beforehand. My first instance of this was Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling). In high school, all of my close friends were huge Harry Potter fans, and so it became a kind of tradition that we would watch the next Harry Potter film on the day it started showing in cinemas, right after school. Only I just could not get through the fifth book (The Order of the Phoenix-- which I'm actually reading now) and so eventually, after months of struggle, I gave up. And watched the rest of the films blind. I, unlike all my friends, knew everything that was going to happen. And it was that desire to know what was going to happen along with my friends that made me want to keep up with the series.
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| Source: Gripped Into Books |
What a difference a movie adaptation makes!
Seriously. Then there was Twilight (Stephanie Meyer), which actually worked in the opposite way. I avoided the series like the freaking plague. My group of close friends was divided on this one: half of us thought it was a bag of beans and more, the other half, including me, didn't even want to go there. Now granted, I wasn't much of a reader back then, and after my attempts with Harry Potter I'd given up on reading for leisure. But it divided us for a while. Not just when the books were getting big, but through the movie times as well.
But anyway. Movies are big. They'll always be bigger than books, at least in terms of exposure. When a new book-to-movie adaptation is brought to light, film tie-ins are published and word gets around. People will want to read the book before the movie.
For example: The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) - all of my siblings had picked up the trilogy and bought them. They understood that this book/film was going to be big, and so now? They've all finished the series and I'm still pining for those white and gloriously luxurious Luxury editions of the series. My sister, now in her mid-20s and is 'beyond YA lit', read the books. My big brother, who never finished reading even The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, read the series. (My younger brother, albeit, only by a year, unsurprisingly to me read the series.)
Of course, this will not always be the case. Les Miserables, anyone? (Maybe for summer 2014...) What gets me excited is that book-to-movie adaptations can get non-readers to read books! *John Green-style hair strangle* I just thought I'd ramble on a bit, since I never do that on the blog and I think I ought to do it more often. I think about books a lot. :P
So, share! I want to know your experiences with book-to-movie adaptations!
(I've also read The Silver Linings Playbook and The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and Tomorrow, When the War Began... Still, I'm not even thinking of pursuing the The Mortal Instruments series)
This page is getting me really amped up for upcoming films!
And alright, alright. I'll do my review for Falling Kingdoms, while I'm here and semi-motivated to type some more.
