Claire Stevens's Blog, page 58

Feature and Follow Friday #6 - Movie Adaptations

Happy Feature & Follow Friday!  Feature & Follow is a blog hopping meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read in which book bloggers get to know and follow each other.  

You just write your post, answering the featured question and linking to the hosts' sites and the featured bloggers' sites (this week it's The Darling Bookworm).  Then put your link in the Linky tools thingy.  Then hop around the linked sites making friends with as many other book bloggers as you like.

This week's question is:  How would you pitch to the biz to make your favourite book into a movie?
 Submitted by Girl of 1000 Wonders.

This is a tough one, because I'm generally not a fan of movie/TV adaptations of books.  I guess it all stems from the fact that different people 'see' characters and places in their heads differently, so the way I see a character may differ wildly from the way the producer sees them.  Also, the movie industry has this annoying thing where they change scenes for no apparent reason and cast thirty-year-olds as seventeen-year-olds.

So if I had to pitch a book (for example, Cinder by Marissa Meyer), I'd pitch it as a mini-series rather than a film, as I really think that all the scenes and characters are essential to the story as a whole and I'd hate for any to be cut out.  Then I'd them all about the awesome characters, setting and plot and that's probably where things would start going wrong, because I'd start ranting about how they're not allowed to change anything and how they've got to cast believable actors as the characters and make sure that the actors read the damn book before they start filming, because if I have to watch another episode of Graham Norton where the actor rocks up for their interview and Graham starts asking them about how they  found playing such a beloved literary character and the actor just kind of glazes over and says, 'Was it a book before it was a film then?' I will probably put my fist through the screen of the TV.

So yeah, I don't think I'm going to be ditching my day job to become a movie pitcher person any time soon.

How about you?  Can you do a better job of pitching a book to movie execs than I can? (It wouldn't be hard!)

For those new to my blog and who don't already follow me, I'd love it if you followed me via bloglovin' or Twitter or both!

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Finding Audrey tells the story of Audrey Turner, a young girl who has been with anxiety disorder after she experiences bullying at school.  It’s one of a few books dealing with mental illness that are out at the moment and Sophie Kinsella has written something really quite touching and special.

Now, I suspect that this book won’t be for everyone.  The subject of mental illness is still quite divisive and I know there are people who think that it should be dealt with seriously and who possibly won’t appreciate Sophie Kinsella’s lighthearted style of writing.

I, however, really liked it.  The author doesn’t make light of mental illness, but she writes with a light touch, if you see what I mean.  Anxiety disorder is something that millions of people live with.  It deserves to get more exposure to raise awareness and understanding and I personally don’t think that a book has to be desperately dull and gloomy in order to do this.

There are some very quirky characters (I especially liked the Daily Mail-obsessed mother - I have one of those myself!) and I liked the dynamics of Audrey’s family.  The romance in this wasn’t overwhelming but it was very sweet.  I really liked Linus and the way he tried to help Audrey to overcome her problems, although I though it was very slightly instalove-y, especially given Audrey’s crippling anxiety.

I think my favourite thing about this book was Sophie Kinsella’s writing style.  She’s not an author that I’ve read anything from before, but if her other books are like this then I’ll certainly be looking out for them.  She’s got a hilarious way of describing things and it really kept me laughing, but then a couple of pages later she’ll be describing something quite serious and tragic.

Finding Audrey is a pretty quick read and I rattled through it in one evening.  I’d say it’s a great book to bring to the beach with you this summer.

I received a copy of Finding Audrey in exchange for an honest review.  Many thanks to Penguin Random House and Netgalley.  


9/10

Firecracker by David Iserson

Firecracker is the story of Astrid Krieger, a seventeen year old girl who lives in a disused rocket ship on her parents' estate because she has just been expelled from her posho boarding school for breaking into the dean's office and stealing test papers.  To teach her a lesson, her family decide to send her to the local public high school, where she meets Noah, a socially-awkward boy with a great line in seventies shirts, and Lucy, a hair-chewing loser.  As Astrid finds her feet in her new school (that smells of urine, unlike her old school, which smelled of diamond earrings) she starts building a plan for revenge on whoever it was who set her up.

Okay, the first thing to say about Firecracker is that I really, really enjoyed it.  The second thing to say is that it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

The main thing that will put some people off is the MC.  Astrid is arrogant, obnoxious, power-crazed, rude, misanthropic and slightly sociopathic and yet, for me, she totally worked as a character. She has no morals whatsoever, but she does have standards. For instance, she has no problem smooshing a Twinkie between her hands and wiping it in the chief bully's hair in the middle of the school cafeteria, but she would never, ever do the same thing to the socially-inept hair-chewing loser.  That's not cool.

She does grow as a character as the book progresses, and we find out a little about exactly why she's so very chippy and unpleasant, but she doesn't do a complete personality one-eighty and start wearing a hair shirt for all her past misdeeds.  I was glad of this, because I think it would have weakened her as a character. Instead, she develops new ways of looking at life, whilst retaining her hilarious snarkiness.

I liked Astrid and Noah's relationship and the way she lowers her defences a teeny, tiny bit to get to know him but never gets all lovey-dovey.  In fact, I just generally liked Noah.  He wasn't like a Book Boyfriend or anything but he was exactly the right compliment for Astrid.

The plot isn't anything groundbreaking - it's kind of a classic tale of: loss of something important, gradual adjustment to new circumstances followed by big reveal/betrayal and then a kind of be-careful-what-you-wish-for moral, but the story is interspersed with so many great anecdotes and asides (usually about Bharani princes or shady politicians) that it actually becomes something pretty special.

Another thing that shines the plot up is the writing, which is superb.  Iserson has a really cool way of writing that's slightly off-the-wall and yet descriptively spot-on and he can be truly hilarious at times.  This book actually had me laughing out loud in that irritating way people do when they're reading a funny book in the company of someone else and the other person keeps asking what's so funny, and the laughing person just goes, 'Oh it's something funny in this book.  But it's the context.  If I say it out loud it won't sound funny.'  That was me, last night, reading this book. 
 
Now, I have to give fair warning: there's a love triangle in Firecracker.  But it's such a ridiculous love triangle, that it made me laugh rather than throw the book across the room.  I doubt anyone is going to be putting up a Team Pierre icon on the sidebar of their blog.

So, yeah.  Firecracker was a really fun read.  If you're looking for something serious and profound that rocks your world and makes you question your metaphysical existance, then it may not be the book for you.  If you're looking for something to take to the beach and laugh irritatingly at, then you should pick it up.

9/10

Top Ten Tuesday - Ten Books I'd Love To See As Movies

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because everyone loves a good list, don't they? We love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

This week the subject is:  Ten books I'd love to see as movies

1.  Cinder by Marissa Meyer.  I know, I know, I keep going on about how awesome this series is, but can't you just imagine the cyborgs and maglev cars and pretty dresses and androids...

2.  Firecracker by David Isensen.  I've nearly finished this book at the moment and unless the author really screws up the last couple of chapters then he will have produced one of the funniest books I've ever read.  The dialogue and internal commentary is spot on a and it's really visual.  David Isensen wrote for New Girl, and it really shows.

3.  Half Bad by Sally Green.  Such a good book, really dark and twisted, and although I wasn't keen on the sequel, I'd love to see what a studio could make of this.

4.  Not A Drop To Drink by Mindy McGinnis.  In my head, this book looks like Little House On The Prarie and sounds like Firefly, so I'd love to see how that translates on screen.

5.  The Martian by Andy Weir.  Because the special effects would be just amazing.

6.  Easy by Tammara Webber.  Because I want to see (and when I say see, I mean perve over) the guy they get to play Lucas.

7.  Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson.  This would be a great summer film.

8.  Lola And The Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins.  I just want to see Lola's Marie Antoinette costume.  And Cricket.

9.  This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers.  Because it's basically The Breakfast Club With Added Zombies and it'd be really cool if they got younger versions of Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedie, Emilio Estevez et all to play the characters.

10.  Uglies by Scott Westerfield.  Scott Westerfield's worldbuilding in Uglies is so great, I think it deserves to be made into a film.


What about you?  What books would you love to see made into films?

May Favourites and June TBR

May was kind of a mixed bag, reading-wise.  I read a couple of books that I thought I'd enjoy but ended up not really connecting with (Love Letters To The Dead; Bubble World), but it wasn't all bad.  I finally jumped on the Lunar Chronicles bandwagon and ended up a total fangirl, reading Cinder and Scarlet, as well as the Wattpad novellas, and of course there was the fab A Court Of Thorns And Roses (which I hadn't expected to be as good as it turned out to be).  And now it's June!  Despite the fact that I have the heating on and it's lashing with rain, I'm remaining optimistic and assuming that at some point soon I'm going to be able to lounge out in the back garden with a glass of Vimto and a good book.   Here's what I've got coming up for the following month:

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

This is my first DNF of the year.  I'm gutted - gutted - especially as I read Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver trilogy and loved it.

The main problem I had with this book is that it's about horses.  Obviously, I read the blurb before I bought it, but I didn't think the horse thing would be such a big deal for me.  You see, when I was about eight, I went to a summer fete where an angry horse who was tired of giving rides to over-sugared children tried to take a chunk out of my arm with its massive, chomping teeth.  Ever since then I've suffered from a fairly crippling degree of Horse Fear, and where normal people see horses like this: I tend to see them more like this: Imagine my discomfort, therefore, when I discovered that this book wasn't about just any old horses, but about magic, sea-dwelling horses who drink blood and try to kill people.

No.  Just, no.  Sorry Maggie - your writing is amazing, but the horses were just too damn scary.

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Since the death of her father, Macy Queen’s life has revolved around routines, silence and ‘I’m fine’ smiles.  She and her mother occupy the same home but never communicate and when her cold boyfriend goes away to Brain Camp, all she has is a long summer of working at the information desk at the local library to look forward to, until she becomes involved with the staff of the local catering company.

I know this is going to be a minority voice, but I couldn’t really see the huge appeal of this book.  It was okay, but I think that by next week I’ll have forgotten all about it.  It’s a book mainly about bereavement and grief and the different ways in which people deal with it and how it affects their relationships with the people around them, but it’s also chick-lit, so nothing is ever delved into with any great depth.

The plot is kind of slow and not a lot really happens, but I quite liked the author’s writing style so I didn’t mind too much.  She’s quite descriptive without being flowery and I got a real sense of some of the scenes she set.

I really liked some of the supporting characters.  Macy’s sister Caroline was interesting - she had a chequered past which contrasted nicely with her super-respectable life and she was the only person who told things like they were.  Kristy was really cool too - she was sassy and funky and seemed to know who she was.  Bert was funny and Wes was okay as a love interest. 

I had literally no idea what Monica was even doing in the book - she does nothing (both in terms of physical action and of moving the plot forward) and her vocal repertoire is limited to four words - "Donneven," "Bettaquit," "Nuh-uh," and "Mmm-hmm."  The characters all make jokes about this, which was amusing, but I didn’t really understand why she was included as a character.  Maybe to reflect how energetic and lively Kristy was by comparison?  Don’t know.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t keen on Macy.  I know that she was still grieving for her father, but she was so closed-off that I never really got a sense of who she was.  I couldn’t picture her in my head, either what she looked like, the things she enjoyed, how she would react in a particular situation.  She did grow as the book progressed and learnt to embrace chaos a little, so that was something, but her constant strive for perfection irritated me.

And Jason, her kind-of boyfriend?  Oh my word!  He was basically Sheldon Cooper (obsessive, genius, emotionally cold, not fond of physical contact) but without the laughs.  He was so ridiculously awful that it just made me wonder why she was with him in the first place.  At best he was emotionally barren and at worst he was just mean to her.  Who suggests a break in a relationship via email?  To be fair to Macy, she didn’t seem bothered at all when this happened, which made me think again, ‘What were you even doing with him??’

I wouldn’t completely rule out reading one of Sarah Dessen’s books in the future, but if they’re all like this then they won’t be high on my TBR list.

5/10

Feature and Follow Friday #5 - How Many Books Are There In Your TBR List?

Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!  The idea is to answer the featured question, link your post and then hop around following other blog.  This week's featured blogger is Lauren from My Expanding Bookshelf.

This week's question is:  How many books are there in your TBR list?

181 books at the moment, not including a few books I have sitting on my Kindle and another couple on my shelf at Netgalley.  It just keeps getting added to - there are so many great books being released that I can't read quickly enough to keep up!  I don't use the Goodreads TBR list but keep my list on Amazon instead as a wishlist.  The advantage is that you can also sort it by price to see if anything has been reduced in price as a promo!

How about you?  How many books are on your TBR list?  And how do you sort it?

Feel free to follow me on Bloglovin', Goodreads, Twitter or all three - I always follow back!

Feature and Follow Friday - How Many Books Are There In Your TBR List?

Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!  The idea is to answer the featured question, link your post and then hop around following other blog.  This week's featured blogger is Lauren from My Expanding Bookshelf.

This week's question is:  How many books are there in your TBR list?

181 books at the moment, not including a few books I have sitting on my Kindle and another couple on my shelf at Netgalley.  It just keeps getting added to - there are so many great books being released that I can't read quickly enough to keep up!  I don't use the Goodreads TBR list but keep my list on Amazon instead as a wishlist.  The advantage is that you can also sort it by price to see if anything has been reduced in price as a promo!

How about you?  How many books are on your TBR list?  And how do you sort it?

Feel free to follow me on Bloglovin', Goodreads, Twitter or all three - I always follow back!

Bubble World by Carol Snow

This book kind of melted my brain, and not in an awesome way.  More like in the way your brain gets fried if you watch a thousand episodes of The Only Way Is Essex back-to-back.  I imagine.

So the premise of the book is that our MC, Freesia, lives on a beautiful island called Agalinas, where she is beautiful and slim, where peacocks wake her up every morning by singing her pop songs, where her wardrobe is so big she wouldn’t have to repeat an outfit for a year and where she takes classes like Advanced Eye Make Up at her high school.

Sadly for Freesia, Agalinas isn’t real.  In reality, she is an ordinary-looking girl living in a town in Arizona, immersed in a 24-7 virtual reality world.

The author has an engaging way of writing that made this a quick, easy read but largely this book didn’t work out well for me and because I hate trashing books, I’m going to explain exactly why.  Because, hey, what didn’t work for me might be perfectly good reading for someone else.  Warning: spoilers ahead.

The plot of this book started off interestingly, with this shallow, superficial virtual world, and it had me wondering where it was going to go.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere.  Freesia starts off in Bubble World, commits and infraction, gets kicked out, re-adjusts to the real world, gets re-admitted to Bubble World and then decides to go home.  And that’s pretty much it.

I just felt like this book could have been so much more than it was.  Bubble World is so saccharine-sweet, so flaky and shallow, so totally devoted to instant gratification, that I think her real-world home should have been a lot more raw and gritty in comparison to add a better contrast.  Instead, her home in Arizona was comfortably middle-class, her high school was okay (although not as beautiful as Agalinas) and she made friends within about thirty seconds of arriving back.

There was no real tension in Freesia’s situation.  It would have been better if there was some nefarious reason for all these children to be in Bubble World, like their life energy was being harvested, or their brain waves were being used to design new super-weapons without their knowing.  Something.

I didn’t understand why the creator of the Bubble World programme made everything so superficial.  The reason he gave was that children don’t flourish in traditional educational environments, but he wasn’t exactly churning our future Einsteins with Bubble World.  And did he not think he’d get found out when the kids returned to the real world and could add two and two without using their fingers?

I also couldn’t work out why any parent would sign their child up for Bubble World.  At all.  To completely immerse your child in a virtual world - night and day - without having any access to what your child is doing, or any idea what they’re learning (in this case, nothing whatsoever) just doesn’t sound like something parents would do.  I know parents send their children to boarding schools, but they’re still in the real world, with real experiences and real people.

This issue came to a head for me towards the end of the book, when Freesia is described as having ‘drool on [her] chin, matted and flat hair and dead eyes’.  What parent would be happy viewing their child through a plexiglass bubble, looking like that?

Freesia’s parents tell her that their reason for sending her to Bubble World was that she had no friends.  Well, boo hoo.  That’s life, love.  You get knocked back and you get up and try again.  It’s called emotional development.  Any parent who’d deprive their children of that are dumb and deserve to have their kids taken into care.

The worldbuilding was good and I got a real sense of what Bubble World looks and feels like, but the world was so Barbie-like that I was surprised how anyone could have stood it for more than a day.  Just reading about it was like eating a whole jar of marshmallow fluff in one go.  Even the slang words they use were too twee for me: sips and nibbles for drink and food, squiggy for crazy, wiggy for angry, de-vicious for attractive, fizz for flirt.  Didn’t work for me.

And Freesia.  Oh my word.  I’ve read a lot of books in my life, but she is a contender for Most Shallow Character Ever.  All she cares about is having enough pretty clothes and she judges people solely based on their appearance.  She doesn’t grow as a character.  Even at the end of the book, when she decides to stay in the real world, she gives this as her reason:

‘It was hard for her to explain exactly what she was feeling.  “I don’t want to live in a world without Pop-Tarts.”’

Gah!


3/10