TGIF at GReads! {25}

 TGIF is a weekly feature hosted by Ginger over at GReads! Each week, Ginger asks her followers a question to help us get to know one another better. It's also a chance to re-cap blog posts from the past week. This week's question:

Book to Movie: Which book turned movie do you feel did the best adaptation? What about the worst? 

My opinion of book to movie adaptations has changed some over the years, especially once I heard John Green's opinion on the subject. He thinks that a movie adaptation should be completely different from the book. This gave me a lot to think about on the subject, and with some books I agree, but with other I disagree completely.

For example, Practical Magic. I saw the movie first and it's one of my absolute favorites! I also love Alice Hoffman's writing, so I decided to read the book last month. Whoa. The book and movie are COMPLETELY different, but I really think it's one of my favorite movie adaptations! For one thing, there are things in the book that would not make a good movie. Like the Aunts. In the movie, the Aunts are a fixture, and two of the best characters. In the book, they're more distant and don't really come into the picture until the end. So many things were changed and I found myself being really glad that the movie was so different. The fact that the movie and book were so dissimilar didn't effect my love for either at all.

I think one of the worst movie adaptations has got to be Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I think I feel it's awful because Percy Jackson is a series and they took events from later books and mashed them into one movie! I hated it! The entire time, I was thinking "Wait! That's not how things went!" For some reason, it really irked me that things were so different. Maybe it's because I read the series first and was so disappointed with the way they portrayed it. Like the people who made the movie did a disservice to the author.

I have a love-frustration relationship with the Harry Potter movies. I've thought each movie had it's merits, but have always been frustrated that they've left out elements that I thought were key when I was reading the book. I really have loved each movie (though I will say that Half-Blood Prince is my least favorite) and I have such a strong emotional connection to this series. I will still pick apart each film, though, and tell you exactly what I would have left in, and who cares that the movie would have been 4 hours long? It was important, dang it!

I'm looking forward to The Hunger Games so much! I think this movie adaptation will be great. I saw the trailer on the big screen when I went to see Breaking Dawn and almost peed my pants.

Last week on Surrounded By Words:

(Actually, it's two weeks)

2012 Reading Challenges Update! 

Tune in Tuesday {20} Concert Edition featuring Tyrone Wells

25 Days of Jubilation + Giveaway

Tune in Tuesday {19} featuring Ben Rector

Review: The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

In My Mailbox {6}