The Princess Bride in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jun 14, 2016 Megan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: funny-humor-satire, favorites, middle-grade-and-young-adult, classics, fantasy, book-riot-2016-read-harder

I'm pretty sure that I was predisposed to love this book based on my love of the movie adaptation, which contains some of my all-time favorite lines to quote. I may be guilty of repeating "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" on a fairly regular basis. I think that I would have enjoyed the book just as much if I hadn't seen the movie first. Normally, I prefer to read the book first because the movie doesn't always live up to the reading experience, even when th I'm pretty sure that I was predisposed to love this book based on my love of the movie adaptation, which contains some of my all-time favorite lines to quote. I may be guilty of repeating "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" on a fairly regular basis. I think that I would have enjoyed the book just as much if I hadn't seen the movie first. Normally, I prefer to read the book first because the movie doesn't always live up to the reading experience, even when the author is involved in the adaptation. However, this is one of the rare instances when I felt that the movie adaptation was just as good as the book it was based on -- the story and dialogue were nearly identical, so reading the book was like visiting with an old friend. Even though I knew how the story would turn out, it was an utterly enjoyable reading experience from start to finish.

I selected this book to fulfill the "Read a book originally published in the decade you were born" category for the 2016 Book Riot Read Harder challenge when I discovered that it was published the year I was born! No wonder I loved it so much :) I still may read another book or two from that decade because many titles caught my eye when I perused the 1970's lists on Goodreads. I ended up reading a 25th anniversary edition of this book, which had a hilariously creative Author's Note/Introduction about how he discovered S. Morgenstern's classic tale of true love and high adventure, and came to put together the "good parts" abridged version of the book. This edition also included an abridged version of the first chapter of the alleged long-lost sequel, "Buttercup's Baby," with a similar intro from the author. This book is inventive, original, and laugh-out-loud funny. If you have not yet discovered this tale in either book or movie form, stop what you're doing and rectify that today. If you're one not as much of a Princess Bride fan as I am, that's cool. You're entitled to your questionable opinion. And while I'm pretty sure I'll still speak to you for not sharing my affection for this book and movie, I may never look at you the same again ;-) ...more

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Feb 16, 2016 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, humour, tv-movie

Having come to the movie of The Princess Bride relatively late in life (its and mine!), I didn't realise as the time that it was originally a novel. I've seen the book around in the years since and recently it was on offer for Kindle so I decided to give it a try. Happily the book is at least as good as the film and in fact has an extra dimension to it. The novel is presented as an abridgement of an original by the original author, S. Morgenstern. Chapters of the story are interspersed with pass Having come to the movie of The Princess Bride relatively late in life (its and mine!), I didn't realise as the time that it was originally a novel. I've seen the book around in the years since and recently it was on offer for Kindle so I decided to give it a try. Happily the book is at least as good as the film and in fact has an extra dimension to it. The novel is presented as an abridgement of an original by the original author, S. Morgenstern. Chapters of the story are interspersed with passages from Goldman where he talks about having the "original" read to him by his father when he was very ill (like in the book), or where he explains what extraneous material he's abridged, or where he includes anecdotes of his troubles getting the book written and published or the film made. The twist is that all of that is, in fact, fictional as well. The original book he's abridged, the wife and son he describes, and so forth are completely made up. It's very well done and does add to the fun of the overall book.

It's been a while since I saw the film so some of the finer plot points I'd forgotten which made the overall story more fun for me as some bits were still a surprise. The tone of the book was much like the film, irreverent and flippant, with constant asides in brackets about random things. The romping adventure plot was still just as much fun and most of the characters got more backstory and development than in the film which made it a richer experience overall.

Sadly I felt this version of the novel was let down overall by the Buttercup's Baby sequence at the end. It just didn't work for me, way too much fictional reality where the author wrangled with the Morgenstern estate, met with Stephen King, and so on. That all really dragged for me. The ratio of asides to actual story was also far too high so I didn't really follow what little story there was very well. I also just didn't like the story very much, sadly.

But still, that didn't dim my enjoyment for the main work. My recommendation would be to not bother reading Buttercup's Baby if you ever get a version that includes it, as far as I'm concerned it adds nothing of real value or enjoyment.

TL:DR version - if you love the movie, you'll love the book too. ...more

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