Hey, two days off in a row means two posts in a row! Shocking, I know.
This is something new I’ve decided to try - books vs. their movie counterparts - and if it turns out okay then maybe I’ll do some more posts like this. I wanted to try it out because, as a book nerd, I’m generally in favor of books over movies, however there are movies that live up to the greatness of their predecessor. So, The BFG. I picked up this book when I saw there was going to be a movie coming out. I loved Matilda so I thought it was time to read another Roald Dahl book. When I got this book (from a used book sale) it was some time before the movie was set to come out. I wanted to read it before I saw the movie so I’d have an untainted perspective of the novel. Turns out I didn’t actually see the movie until December (it came out in July), but I still read the book first. So ha! I thought the book was good. It wasn’t hugely outstanding in my opinion, but it was fun and funny. It seemed like it would have been a lot of fun to read outloud, what with all of the BFG’s interesting vocabulary. I might still get to read it outloud to my siblings, which will be fun. Or maybe I’ll just record myself reading parts of it so you can hear me stumble over every word. The book was a little bit slow plotwise, but not so much so that I got bored. It just seemed to take a while to accomplish a simple goal. But I suppose it would make an excellent bedtime story because there aren’t very many startling parts that will keep you awake wondering. The film was also slow, more noticeably so, since it was a movie. It did a good job of filling in the long parts with interesting things to look at and little bits of humor, but it was still almost unbearably slow. Despite its pacing, I really liked the movie and how close it stayed to the book. There were a few instances of deviation, which I could see were mostly for cinematic effect and were understandable. I liked how everything looked. The images in the movie were all similar to the illustrations in the novel, which was nice. A few parts of the movie were the same as parts in the book, just moved somewhere else in the timeline, which was okay, but made me grumpy at first because I’d thought they’d left a part out until it appeared later. I must say that the book ending, while close to the movie ending, is way better than the movie ending. I won’t spoil anything, but I think the book found a better way of resolving the issues. I guess the movie ending was okay, but it could have been happier if they stuck to the book. Comparatively, I like the book better (surprise, surprise), but I think the movie was lovely. I’m glad that the movie came out or else my attention would never have been brought to the book and I wouldn’t know about phizzwizards, snozzcumbers, and how well giants can hear things. Good job Roald Dahl and good job Steven Spielberg. Well, did I do an okayish job at portraying the wins and loses of the movie and book? Do you think I should do more “book vs. movie” posts or was this a horrifying experience for everyone? If I do another one, I’d like to do Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, but so far I’ve only seen the movie (shameful, I know). It was a really weird, but kind of awesome movie, so I’m excited to read the book. Thanks for tuning in! Until next time my beans! Book cover from: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/527786.The_BFG Movie poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3691740/
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Last year I read around fifty-five books. Or, at least, that’s what Goodreads tells me. My goal was actually sixty, but when it got to December I had only read fifty-three so I took the cheater’s way out and lowered my goal to fifty-five. In my defense, I only read one book in the entirety of November (you might recall that I was busy writing a book for NaNoWriMo). Anywhoozle, my Goodreads reading goal this year is, once again, sixty books. We’ll see how that works out, but I think I can get it this year. To get to that goal, I obviously have to read some books. So my question is, what books should I read? Here I have two lists for you. The first is a list of books I hope to read by the end of 2017. These are mostly books that I’ve been wanting to read for a while and hopefully this will be the year to get those read. The second list is filled with books that come out this year that I am super duper excited for but probably won’t get to read for a while *cough, 2018’s TBR list, cough*. Without further ado, here are five of my 2017 books to-read: Three Dark Crowns - Kendare Blake From what I’ve gathered, this book is about three sisters all born to be queen. However, there can be only one queen so they have to duke it out to see who gets the job. That sounds like a pretty wild concept to begin with, but then I heard that each of the girls has a super power, so now I’m bouncing in my seat waiting to read this. This book came out in September 2016, so it’s pretty new. What I like about it most is that I hadn’t heard anything about it before it just popped up in my local bookstore. Took me by surprise with it’s gorgeous and intriguing cover and I can’t wait to read it. Glass Sword - Victoria Aveyard A sequel to one of my favorite books I read last year (Red Queen), Glass Sword promises just as much excitement and betrayal as the first one. I don’t want to say too much because the first book should not be spoiled at any cost (#dat plot twist tho). All you need to know is that the first one was an amazing mash up of X-Men, the French Revolution, and something vaguely dystopian, although it’s really more of a sci-fi thing. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo You may recall my long, somewhat fangirlish, “review” of Shadow and Bone. You may recall how much I enjoyed it. So, when I heard of this spinoff series that takes place in the same universe I kind of freaked out. I think the main thing that has been keeping me from reading this one so far is the fact that I can’t decide if I want to purchase it and then read it or if I want to get it from the library so I can read it sooner. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for me because I’d just get it from the library and forget about it. However, this book is absolutely beautiful and has my head spinning with its black gilded pages and pretty-ness factor. But then I don’t want to buy it because I don’t know if I’m going to like it as much as Shadow and Bone and if I get it and don’t like it then I just spent money on something I didn’t like. This year I am going to read it. I’ll let you know how that goes. Iron Man; The Gauntlet - Eoin Colfer Okay, take a look at that glorious title and author combo. Let it sink it. Do I really need to explain to you why I want to read this middle-grade book? Haven’t caught on yet? I’ll break it down for you: Corrie really like Avengers, Iron Man is Avenger, Corrie really like Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer write Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer write book about Iron Man. Nuff said. Uglies - Scott Westerfield I have been wanting to read this one for years, but I keep forgetting about it. Brief overview, it’s about a dystopian society where everyone is made “beautiful” when they come of age. I don’t recall the specifics, but I think this is about a girl who doesn’t want to be made “beautiful” and what happens to her. It sounds like it’s going to be really deep and thought provoking about what beauty is and stuff. I saw a Twilight Zone episode with the same premise and it was kind of freaky. I can’t wait to review the book after I read it and tell you what I thought. I have a ton more books that I want to read this year, and some I’m not sure I want to read but my friends have been telling me to read for forever so I’ll probably trust their judgement and end up reading them. However, for the sake of not writing a hugely enormously gigantic post, I won’t go over all of them. Here is the list of books (most of which haven’t been released yet) that I am excited for the arrival of in 2017: Wires and Nerves - Marissa Meyer and Douglas Holgate Oh my stars. I thought life in the Lunar Chronicles couldn’t get any better when Stars Above came out and now we are getting a graphic novel about Iko?!?! *deep breathing* Too excited to tell you why I’m excited. It’s coming January 31st!! *squeals and melts into a puddle of excited goop* Gilded Cage - Vic James Since this is the first in a series and the first book by this author that I’ve heard about I don’t really know what to expect. I can tell you that the synopsis mentions special magical powers and you know what a sucker I am for those. The ranking system, where powered people are in charge and everyone else has to work, reminds me a lot of Red Queen. The MC is a girl without powers who works for a super powerful family, so I’m guessing she’s going to get into all sorts of shenanigans. Set to come out on Valentine’s Day. Daughter of the Pirate King - Tricia Levenseller Pirates? I’m in. I love pirate stories. I would never ever want to become a seafarer myself, but I do quite like pirates. I dressed up as a pirate for halloween and will probably do so again next year (because it’s super easy). This novel promises excitement and possibly romance. I’ve never read a romantic pirate story so I don’t really have much to say about that, but it’s pirates. PIRATES! Set to come out February 28th. King’s Cage - Victoria Aveyard Ohmygosh! *throws hands into the air in excitement* A third Red Queen book? I didn’t dare read the synopsis because, as stated earlier, I haven’t read the second one yet. But the cover is eerie, no? Boney crown thing? What the heck? My head is running wild with possibilities of what might happen in Glass Sword that leads to a title and cover like this. Set to come out February 7th. Wayfarer - Alexandra Bracken This is actually a sequel to a book that I have not read yet (but I intend to), Passengers. All I know is that the first one is about a time traveling violinist and that’s enough to get me to want to read it. Also, I’ve heard a few people rave over it. Came out January 3rd. There you have it. These are the books I am most excited to get my hands on in 2017. From a reading standpoint, I think this year is going to be pretty epic. I’ve got a lot of books to read. I think now would be a good time to break out the old library card and prep the wallet for some *ahem* necessary expenditures.
Another thing I’m hoping to do this year is make some Book Tag videos. Yeah… you know how excited I was to make those videos and how simple I thought it would be to crank one out every month or so? Well, obviously that didn’t go as planned. We’ll see. I’m going to need to consider my editing options before I get to far into that endeavor. Hopefully I’ll get at least one video made in 2017. I’d consider that an accomplishment. What books are you thrilled about for 2017? What have you been meaning to read forever and think you’ll probably get read this year? What are your New Years Readsolutions (hehe, you see what I did there?)? Let me know in ze comments section. Merci mon amie. All images were taken from Goodreads.com. |
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