The Shape of Water
Then, one fateful night, she sees something ...more
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Me: Yup.
Husband: Didn't you start it today?
Me: Yesterday.
Husband: Still! Was there fish sex?
Me: Yeah. (gentle readers it was not graphic)
Husband: SERIOUSLY?!?!
Me: It's about social outcasts! About seeing someone as they are, in a way that no one else sees them!
Husband: Yeah but still.
Me: But he's a man!
Husband: STILL.
Me: He's a man, babe.
Husband: ...............still ...more

That's how I had described this book in my TBR not knowing much about this story and.... meh close enough.
I would categorize this book as Magical Realism and full disclosure... not my jam. I liked the characters, I liked the story okay.... until the end when the magical realism stuff starts happening.
To be completely honest, I'm not sure I would have finished it if I hadn't listened to it as an audiobook!
Will check out the movie and update after! ...more

“Man should be better than monsters.”
“Ah, but who are the monsters?”
I have always had a soft spot for misunderstood monsters who are unreasonably feared. The key work here is “unreasonably”. When their life or the life of their beloved is threatened of course they are allowed to become vicious.
And it’s not just me. I am sure that most of you know that there is a huge number of fans that enjoy PNR books i.e. paranormal romance, monsters’ erotica, erotic horror, fantasy books for young ...more

Now...I went into this knowing that it would be pretty odd. All I'd heard about this book was that it involves a woman who falls in love with an amphibious man/creature. Definitely up there on the strange scale.
The first 100 pages or so were pretty slow, I wasn't invested, and almost gave up. We have 2 main POVs, that of Elisa - a mute janitor working ...more

First, about the book. It has multiple POV's and is about an amphibious man-like creature that the army found in the Amazon and immediately captured to study it in the lab. It sounds about right.As we learned in E.T., they want dissect the crap ...more

THE SHAPE OF WATER is a strange book. For a variety of reasons.
1. Dual film/book release, which, to my knowledge, has never been done before.
2. It’s only 312 pages long, but it has a cumulative 130 chapters (split into four sections).
That’s an average of 2.4 pages per chapter.
In the past, I’ve knocked an entire star off my overall rating of a book if a mere portion of it felt choppy and chaotic b/c short chapters. And before TSoW, I considered a ten page chapter to be s ...more

This book was beautiful. I can't think of any other way to describe it. The story, the characters, the words themselves. It was all beautiful. The best way I can think of to describe the way this book made me feel is I'm a shoreline and the words in this book are the waves in the ocean, coming and going, each time leaving something, but also taking something with them when they leave.
The book is split into four parts. Parts one and two are mostly storytelling, atmosphere building, a ...more

....After finally deciding to watch the movie (that I enjoyed MUCH more than I thought I would) just had to checkout what Guillermo del Toro did with the book....and so glad I did!
....The setting is Cold War era America 1962, and unlike the flick, the novel begins with a human monster....Richard Strickland....assigned a dangerous mission in the sweltering jungles and rain forests of South America to locate and capture a legendary new life form, i.e. Gill-God...Man-Fish with supernatura
...more

For a Magical Movie..

Of Hope and Acceptance and Love ...more


I hate that that’s my reaction to this book, but good god almighty was it a slog for me. And it sucks double because I obviously read it wrong being that the handful of my friends who have already read it really enjoyed it. I don’t know what happened. I mean, the story is one that’s been told a time or twelve before. . . . .
“Man should be better than monsters.” “Ah, but who are the monsters?”
But that’s not something that ever ...more


If you’ve ever had a little secret crush on The Creature from the Black Lagoon this is the book that was ...more

I can't get this description out of my mind...

Noo...this is not my description....I read this in another meme
BUT for some reason, I just can't get this image out of my head*shivers*
Don't get me wrong..I have seen the movie...& the movie is fabulous ...BUT even while watching the movie "the creature" creeped me out...
I would tell what the creature actually is because I have seen the movie BUT I don't want to spoil it
My biggest concern is...that h ...more


A moving, mesmerizing, uplifting, and beautifully-written narrative, The Shape of Water plunges us into Occam Aerospace Research Center, a government facility in Baltimore, where a mysterious Amazonian creature (Deus Brânquia) is being kept for further study in the deepest recesses of the laboratory. Richard Strickland, a dom ...more

Buddy read at

This was a beautifully told story about so many individuals that just didn’t fit into the time or place they were born into and how each touched the others life. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. The prose is beautiful and it helped me connect to each of the characters in a different way.
It makes me want to protect Elisa, our mute heroine that finds little ways to defy authority and be the woman she is. She is a good friend to those she cares for and so easy to love in ...more


Described as one half of a “bold two-tiered release”, The Shape of Water is the companion novel to the Guillermo del Toro film of the same name. But what exactly does this mean? Curiosity piqued, I decided to do some digging around, and found out that the idea for a story about a mute woman falling in love with an imprisoned river monster actually came to author Daniel Kraus when he was a teenager. In the years that follow ...more

I'm curious to see how this translated to film.
Update...
I watched the movie and was highly disappointed.
The book unfolds at such a luxurious pace that the rapid fire movie was jarring.
They left out so much that it was confusing for my husband (who didn't read the book) to follow along and figure out what's what. ...more

Truth be told, most film novelizations don’t break much new ground, the worst are mere rote retelling of what viewers saw on the big screen. Some can provide a better backstory and a more detailed character development, the kind of elements better adapted for the printed page as opposed to film.
Guillermo del Toro, one of the coolest directors in recent history, got the idea for his academy award winning film from ...more


Buddy read with the wonderful weekly UF Wednesday group over at BB&B.
To love,
In its many forms and shapes.
The dedication of this book sums up so perfectly just what this book is about.
It’s about being different, struggling in the box the world tries to force you into because it can’t understand and accept your difference and finally breaking free to fight for those you love.
I absolutely loved the beautiful writing, the amazing characters, their depth of feelings whether it was f
...more

I was beyond excited for this. Ever since I saw the trailer. I haven’t seen the film which only made me more curious for it. Pan’s Labrynth and Pacific Rim are two of my all-time favorite films. I love them with all my heart and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen them. This looked to be similar and it was, the Guillermo Del Toro visual aesthetic was leaping off the page, the imagery was vivid in my mind, its sharpness boosted by the trailer. Strangely though, you don’t see the acto
...more
Its very odd and weird at the same time...
A fish-god-man falling love with a mute girl.... 💖
I'm so excited to watch the movie. ...more

It’s 1962, at the height of the Cold War. Deus Brânquia (the Gill-God), an amphibious man, is chased by the US government, with plans to study him for Cold War advancements. Richard Strickland, the villain of this story and a soldier obsessed with his assignment, is able to capture him in the Amazon. The creature is brought to the Occam Aerospace Research Center where it is to ...more

I thought Guillermo del Toro took me for a ride in the movie theater. Little did I know that the true trip would be found in his written words. With a book, inspired by its movie name-sake, I did not expect the book to offer much more than what I saw on the big screen. BOY, was I wrong!!
Experience a connection beyond words.
The Shape of Water, the novel, allows voices to be heard, that are usually ignored. It tells the stories that are often regulated to the sidelines. It mak ...more

I vote for more such movie-to-book things! There are so many that I would love to read as a story. If all the powers that be is/are listening i.e.










topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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READ THE BOOK OR JUST WATCH THE MOVIE???? | 6 | 76 | Oct 13, 2020 02:14AM | |
Fox Book Club: Best Fantasy | 39 | 821 | Dec 07, 2019 10:09AM | |
Disgusting | 16 | 168 | May 03, 2019 09:35PM | |
Goodreads Choice ...: The Shape of Water - Jan 2019 | 11 | 99 | Feb 08, 2019 07:09AM | |
Play Book Tag: The Shape of Water, by Guillermo del Toro, 5 stars | 3 | 17 | Jan 31, 2019 04:45AM | |
Around the Year i...: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro & Daniel Kraus | 1 | 9 | Jan 14, 2019 01:42PM | |
Fiction Fanatics: August 2018 - The Shape of Water | 3 | 15 | Aug 22, 2018 02:42PM |