Top 5: Books to (Re)Read Before The Movies Are Released

Some people get annoyed when all the new Hollywood movies are adaptations instead of originals, but I love it! I have so much love for my favorite books, and finding out that they are coming to the big screen means that what was once only in my imagination can be shared with the world. I can finally see the places I've been picturing and put a face to the characters I've come to love. Over the next year a lot of great novels are being adapted into movies, and these are the top 5 that I need to read or reread before they hit theaters.

5. Warm Bodies
Novel by: Isaac Marion
Opening: February 2013

 

I've been following writer Isaac Marion for years, first through his blog and later his Twitter account. Embarrassing story: I first learned about him through a note posted by band Relient K (a high-school favorite) on MySpace, back when it was cool to have a profile there. Don't worry, I've moved on from the band and the site, but I still loves Marion's work. I've read his short stories and a novel called The Inside about a young man who escaped reality by going to sleep and meeting a girl in his dreams - I loved it and hoped it would become a movie (this was way before Inception). Then in 2011 he published Warm Bodies, a zombie love story, which is being made into a movie with stars including John Malkovich and Rob Corddry. I own the book but haven't read it yet, and I'm already excited!

4. Anna Kerenina
Novel by: Leo Tolstoy
Opening: November 2012

This is a classic novel, telling a love story about a passionate young woman who abandons her stifling marriage for an affair with a count. I tried to read it once, my freshman year of college, and while I enjoyed the storylines surrounding Anna there was also a secondary tale about a young man writing a book about his experiences as a Russian potato farmer that I just couldn't get through. Maybe I've matured enough in the past seven years to be able to enjoy it now. The film stars Keira Knightly in yet another period piece (she is so good at those!) along with heartthrobs Jude Law and Matthew Macfadyen (her beloved Darcy in Pride and Prejudice). And the screenplay is by renown playwrite Tom Stoppard (Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). I'm thinking this is one I'll want on DVD.

3. Life of Pi
Novel by: Yann Martel
Opening: November 2012

I read this book one summer in high school and loved it. It's about a boy, the son of a zookeeper, who travels with his family on a boat from India and after a tragedy ends up alone in a lifeboat with a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger. Pi spends over 200 days lost at sea, and when he finally turns up on shore, tells fantastic tales of his trip, full of hallucinations, adventure, and survival. The once passage I can remember is where Pi ends up on a mysterious island with a foreboding tree that he belives to be carnivorous, with a particular hunger for humans. It was fantastically weird - very Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez - and should make for an interesting film. The only star I recognize in the IMDb writeup is Tobey Maguire, who plays the author.

2. The Perks of Being A Wallflower
Novel by: Stephen Chbosky
Opening: September 2012

I read this title in high school, also - probably the same year as Life of Pi. There was one summer that I didn't have an assigned reading list from my English teacher so I created my own list, and this was one that I chose. It's a small but challenging novel about a boy in high school who is taken under the wing of a couple of upperclassmen. I found that it had a lot of parallels to another book about a troubled young boy, The Catcher in the Rye. Both were told from the boy's point of view and revealed and interesting and devestating twist at the end. I've always wanted to write a paper comparing the two books. The movie adaptation stars Emma Watson, Paul Rudd, Mae Witman (from Parenthood)  and Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson and a young Ashton Kutcher in The Butterfly Effect).

1. The Great Gatsby
Novel by: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Opening: Christmas 2012

Oh, The Great Gatsby! What sounds like a better premise for a movie than love, gin, and the jazz age in 1920s Long Island? It's been since high school that I read the novel, and I need to take the time to revisit the classic featuring Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. The Amazon.com description calls it "Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose," which sounds poetic in and of itself, and I know the book really was that wonderful. I am already anticipating delicious art deco sets and the glamorous fashions of the bobs, flapper dresses, and dapper suits. Title roles go to Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan (Pride and Prejudice, Drive, An Education), and Tobey Macguire.

Plus-Sized Heroines

I was poking around the Goodreads website today, adding some books to my “To Read” list, and saw an add for a new title by the author Liza Palmer. Palmer’s first novel, Conversations with the Fat Girl, is one of my favorites comfort reads about a plus-sized woman working a dead-end job, getting kicked out of her apartment, and watching her now-size-4 best friend have the perfect wedding. As a non-skinny person myself, I’m always glad to read about heroines who are normal sized instead of looking like underfed super models. (Seriously, there is nothing more annoying than reading the back of a book that sounds really good until you come across a line like “Can Amanda prove to the handsome doctor she is working alongside while tending to the poor in the Congo that despite her title as Miss Universe she’s more than just a pretty face, finally finding a man that loves her for her brains as well?” Come on, how many people can relate to that?) The page for Conversations showed some other novels like it, and after a few clicks I found myself at a list of 80 books with plus-sized heroines as recommended by other readers on the site.
   
I scanned through the list and found a few of my favorites (like Bridget Jones’ Diary and The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things) as well as a few that surprised me (Silence of the Lambs? Really?). I read through the descriptions of a few hoping to find some new treasures. What I realized as I read abstract after abstract was that while it was true that they all featured plus-sized heroines, the majority of them also featured heroines who were on diets in order to either a) like themselves or b) get a guy to like them.
   
Why is it that we can’t have normal-sized women without them having weight issues? In every novel I’ve read with a plus-sized leading lady, the woman was basically ashamed of her size and tended to eat her feelings. Bridget Jones judged bad days by how many sweets she’d eaten. Maggie in Conversations had a weakness for pink boxes from the local bakery. Even in The Earth… teenage heroine Virginia felt guilted into eating salads by the people who gave her evil looks when she stopped to get a slice of pizza at a NY street-cart. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I read a book about a curvaceous lady who was happy with the way she looked.

The only average-sized princess
in movies happens to be green.

Hollywood isn’t immune to this concept, either. I can only think of a handful of films where the woman didn’t have to go through an ultra-slimming transformation in order to land the guy. Besides the aforementioned Bridget Jones, the only things I can think of are Queen Latifah’s romantic comedies (like Last Holiday), the musical Hairspray (plump teenager girl snags the heartthrob!), and Shrek – which, although animated and about ogres, featured a princess whose true love preferred her plump rather than trim. I considered adding My Big Fat Greek Wedding to this list, but the bride had to have a complete makeover before her crush would make a move. (I do have to give props to Melissa McCarthy, the fabulous actress from Bridesmaids, Mike and Molly, and Gilmore Girls, for always playing a “woman who happens to be chubby” rather than a stereotypical “chubby woman”. You go, Melissa!)

If the average American woman is a size 12, then why aren’t we publishing books and making movies about women like the majority? We have no problem putting average guys like Kevin James in leading roles, but where are the average ladies? I mentioned this before in my post about the movie Marty, but I would love to see a movie, TV show, or novel about a curvy woman who not only is content with the way she looks but ends up with a handsome guy who loves her for who she is and what she looks like – no makeovers involved.

Part of me feels like it is my responsibility to write stories and books with plus-sized leading ladies. Every storyline I come up with features an average-looking girl looking for, running from, or denying love. You know how writers say they have a story inside them that needs to be told? Maybe this is my story. Surely there are women and girls out there who would love to read about a heroine who looks just like them but doesn’t need to be on a diet to love herself. I know my sixteen-year-old-self would have appreciated it.


Princess Fiona photo courtesy of dreamworks.wikia.com

Nicholas Sparks Film Adaptations

As someone who loves literature, I try to give every book a chance. I don't like to write off an author as "lame" before I've read at least one of their books, even if it is about sparkly century-old vampires with crushes on susceptible young women. So when it comes to Nicholas Sparks, know that I've read a couple of his books - A Walk to Remember and The Notebook, to be exact - and still think he's one of the most repetitive authors out there. Probably the only one to top him would be Danielle Steele - my mom used to read her books, and after about a dozen she realized they're all the same plot but the characters have different names, hair colors and careers. Not my idea of a good read.

So I was at Target the other day, browsing through the book section while waiting for our prescriptions to be filled, and found an entire endcap devoted to Nicholas Sparks, specifically the novels that have been adapted into movies. After the initial eye-roll, I noticed something a little fishy.

 

The cover for Dear John based on the 2010 movie looks suspiciously like the cover of Message in a Bottle, from the film with Kevin Costner in 1999. Dark-haired guy snuggling with a blonde on the beach, centered in the shot? Sounds like a great idea... 

 But then I looked at the rest of the books on the shelf, and that's when it got really good. 

 

Really? Is that all the characters do in Sparks' novels, nearly kiss while touching their lover's face?  Didn't anyone realize that all of the covers look EXACTLY THE SAME? Or did they do it on purpose as part of some marketing strategy? I just don't get it. 

Thankfully, the one book/movie I actually did like - probably because it reminds me of fun times I had watching it at sleep overs during high school - doesn't look exactly like all of the rest of the film adaptation covers. 

 

It does still include the two main characters happily in each others arms, though. I guess that's the signature look for Nicholas Sparks movies. Word has it that his 2010 novel Save Haven is set to be adapted into a film by 2013. It's set in North Carolina, so maybe it's time for another snuggling on the beach cover? I guess we'll have to wait and see...