Book Vs Movie: Shadow & Bone (Season 2)

Hi everyone! It’s the one you’ve all been waiting for……well maybe you haven’t but I have! After a couple of months of promising you that I would talk about Shadow and Bone Season 2 and the book(s) it is based on (because yes, it uses more than one!), I am finally going to be talking about it today as I finished it a couple of weeks ago (it only took me so long to finish because I’ve been busy, I really did enjoy it!).

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Book Thoughts:

I definitely liked Siege and Storm the best out of the three original Grisha trilogy books, of the three books, I think it has the most substance when it comes to the plot and I loved being introduced to all of the new characters, especially Nikolai, who is hands down my favourite character of this trilogy. Ruin & Rising, I had slightly more mixed feelings about. It felt like basically nothing happened in the book until the end which felt a little ridiculous to me given that the book is only 350 odd pages long, and whilst I did like some of the payoff with regards to the Darkling’s backstory, I found the final battle somewhat anti-climactic. I also wasn’t a fan of the ending that Bardugo chose for Alina, and felt the book could have done without the epilogue as it seemed to mostly be there to satisfy the shippers. Here are my full reviews of both books if you want to see my more detailed thoughts:

Siege and Storm (Shadow and Bone #2) Review

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/ruin-rising-review/

TV Thoughts:

I know some of the choices made in the second season have been somewhat polarising, but I actually really enjoyed it. I think it was a good idea to combine the second & third books into one season as a) on a practical level with Netflix cancelling shows so quickly these days, finishing off the trilogy in two seasons at least means that we get a conclusion to that story and b) I honestly don’t think either book has enough plot on its own to fill out a whole season so combining them together made a lot of sense to me. Again I liked the Crows sections better than the Shadow and Bone sections, though as I anticipated, having Nikolai involved in the story really lifted things for me from the first season.

As with the first season, Matthias’ storyline didn’t really seem to fit and again I understand why his section in Hellgate was included as a book fan, but if you were just watching the show, it wouldn’t make much sense. I loved getting to see Nina with the Crows, and along with Nikolai, Wylan was an ABSOLUTE highlight of this season for me, I love him so much. As with the first season, I did feel like some parts were slightly rushed and again, I maybe would have liked them to have had one or two more episodes. I generally think they did a good job with what to include from the books and what to take out and I think they covered all the important parts whilst missing out some of the more boring bits of the books (THANK GOODNESS FOR THE LACK OF THE APPARAT). The only things I would say that I missed was Genya’s confrontation with the King because I LOVED THAT scene in the book, but she does have an equally satisfying confrontation with the Queen to replace it so that softened the blow a little. The final battle was still a little anti-climactic for me, but on the whole it was FAR BETTER than in the book and I loved having the Crows involved, and they took the ending in a slightly different direction than Ruin and Rising which for me was much better. I was kind of surprised that they integrated some of Crooked Kingdom with having Pekka Rollins be a big part of the Crows storyline here, but I think it did work overall.

TV or Book Judgement?:

Again, I think I would go with the TV show here, I would have liked more of the Crows again but then that’s just me preferring the Crows to Alina and Mal! Overall, I really liked what they did with the second season of the show, I think combining the final two books was the right choice and made for a much more exciting season than a whole season of Siege & Storm or a whole season of Ruin & Rising would have and I absolutely loved all the new characters introduced this season, especially Nikolai and Wylan but also Tamar and Tolya, the actors played their characters so well and slotted into the cast so neatly, it was like they were always there. The ending hints at setting up the story of Six of Crows and that seems to be the logical next place to go, I really want to finally see all six together, but they have said they want to do the Six of Crows storyline as a spinoff alongside the main show, so I guess we’ll just have to see what happens and whether Netflix renews them.

That’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I know my thoughts were a little lengthier than usual, but hey, it turns out I have a lot of them! I’ll be back next month with a new Book Vs Movie, this time I’ll be talking about PS I Love You and its movie adaptation.

Book Vs Movie: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Hi everyone! Once again, I’m going to have to disappoint you with the Season 2 of Shadow and Bone Book Vs Movie post because alas, I haven’t yet finished it! I’ve been enjoying it, I’ve just been really busy over the past month and haven’t had anywhere near as much time for Netflix as I normally do, but I only have three episodes left and I’ve got a free evening tonight and tomorrow so I’m hoping I will finish the final three episodes in the next couple of days and that will be my Book Vs Movie post for next month instead.

But as for this month’s post, I’m going to be talking about one that I’d planned to do a while ago and sharing my thoughts on The Time Traveler’s Wife and its film adaptation. You’ll notice I did say specifically film adaptation here because there has been a recent TV adaptation of The Time Traveler’s Wife but I’ve not seen that one so today’s post will be specifically comparing the film to the book. There’s also a musical version of this coming to the West End this year, and honestly, I really don’t know why people keep trying to adapt what seems to me at least to be a decidedly unadaptable book but I will withhold judgement until I’ve seen reviews of the stage show (or gone to see it myself).

Book Thoughts:

Now it’s been a long time since I read this one, I think it was around 2009 or so because I remember seeing the film in the cinema with my family when we were in Seattle, the first year we went to America, and it’s one that me, my mum and sister all shared between us, a very rare event in our household! Anyway, surprisingly given that this book is largely romance focused (though would not fit in the romance genre due to not fitting the genre’s ending conventions), I actually really enjoyed it! It’s a unique concept, it tells the story of Clare and Henry who have an unusual love story and relationship due to Henry being able to travel in time, so when they “first meet” in Henry’s own timeline, Clare has already known him for most of her life due to meeting an older version of Henry as a child. I think the addition of the time travel element made the romance a bit more appealing to me than it otherwise might have been because even eleven years ago, romance really wasn’t what I read. I also think I was intrigued because both my mum and sister had read it and liked it. But yes, it was definitely a different take on a romance and I definitely bought into Clare and Henry’s story and was rooting for them (even if it was fairly obvious from early on that things weren’t going to end well). There are some more iffy bits in there that I realise now than I didn’t realise at 12, including the kind of problematic fact that’s not really addressed about the bordering on/if not outright predatory relationship that older Henry has with younger Clare. Apparently there are also quite a lot of sex scenes which I think I must have blocked out because 12 year old me would have definitely found that awkward (heck 26 year old me still does!). It can’t have been all that bad though because my mum had read it before me so knew what the content was like and still lent it to me!

Movie Thoughts:

Ah this film was not the one. Honestly the most memorable part of that evening was us walking a horrendously long way to get to the cinema in Seattle because we had misread the address on Google Maps and got our taxi to drop us off at 1000 and something on the street the cinema was on, and instead it was like 10000 or something (I may be exaggerating, but it was A REALLY LONG WAY UP THIS STREET). Anyway, this book is really hard to adapt because of the non-linear timeline, it’s not just non-chronological but jumps around a lot within Henry’s timeline and that’s just incredibly complicated to get onto screen. It also bugged me that the film was told largely from Henry’s perspective and focused on him more because the book centres largely on Clare, it’s her that is being referred to in the title so it bothered me that she wasn’t the centre in the film in the same way that she is in the book (though the book is told from both perspectives, I think it would be fair to say that Clare is more central). The amount of condensing needed to fit the book into a movie also means that you lose a lot of the depth of Henry and Clare’s relationship and in the end, you only really get the broad brush strokes of their lives together which I think made them hard to root for as both a couple and individuals because you lost a lot of nuance you got from the book. I also found both Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams kind of bland in this, they don’t make you believe Henry and Clare’s chemistry as a couple which again made it harder for you to invest in the romance. I think the main thing for me that the movie lost from translating the book was a lot of the heart, yes it takes the events of the book and transposes a lot of them onto the screen but it felt far more bland and boring than the book did.

Movie or Book Judgement:

Definitely the book here! The movie lost a lot of what I enjoyed about the book and I feel if you want to get the best sense of Clare and Henry’s relationship and their story then the book is definitely the best way to go because so much was lost in translation from book to screen, both due to the inherent time constraints of film but also because The Time Traveler’s Wife is just a darn tricky story to adapt!

That’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’ll be back with another Book Vs Movie next month where I will DEFINITELY be talking about Shadow and Bone Season 2 and the books from Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse that it is based on this time!

Book Vs Movie: 13 Reasons Why

Hi everyone! I know I said in my post last month that I’d be talking about Season 2 of Shadow and Bone this month, but I actually only just started it last weekend (I’ve been very busy!), so instead, I’m going to do one that I said I’d do last year and talk about 13 Reasons Why and its Netflix adaptation, so we’re doing TV again! I’ll just be focusing on the first season for this, as that’s the only one that’s really adapted from the book (and frankly the only season there should have been).

Book Thoughts:

Now I read 13 Reasons Why quite a long time ago, I think I was 15 or 16 when I read it for the first time. And at that time in my life, I really enjoyed it. I found it a gripping, page turning story and I remember staying up most of the night to read it because I was desperate to find out why Clay was on the tapes and what these people had to do with Hannah Baker committing suicide. It was a gripping, emotional read and it left quite the impression on me. As I’ve got older, I’ve realised some of the more problematic elements of the book (the premise in itself is troubling) but I wanted to give you guys a fair account of my thoughts on the book from the time I first read it.

TV Thoughts:

I think the TV show was a good adaptation of the book, like the book, I found it very gripping and watched it in just two days on Netflix. However the TV show did bring to light some of the more problematic elements of the book that I had missed when I was a teenager (like the glamourisation of suicide) and it was unnecessarily graphic in places particularly in the on-screen depictions of both Hannah’s rape and her suicide, which are not described in anywhere near the same amount of detail in the book (though I was glad to see that the graphic suicide scene has now been taken out of the episode it was originally shown in) and it definitely misses the mark on some of the nuances of mental illness.

TV or Book Judgement:

I think I’d definitely go with the book here. Both have their issues and I’m far more aware of them now than I was when I first read the book as a teenager, I don’t think I would rate the book the same way now that I did back then. But the book wasn’t anywhere near as graphic as the TV show and though it was emotional, I didn’t find it anywhere near as harrowing, so it was a more enjoyable experience (though I did still like the TV show).

So there we go, that’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie. I will be back next month, and I will definitely be talking about Shadow & Bone Season 2 then as I anticipate having finished it by the end of April!

Book Vs Movie: Good Omens

Hi all! I did not mean for this to go out on the same day as Top Ten Tuesday but since February is a blink and you’ll miss it month, suddenly we are here at the end of the month and I haven’t done one of these posts yet, so you’re getting it today! Anyway, once again for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’m actually talking TV and sharing my thoughts on the Amazon miniseries Good Omens and the book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

Book Thoughts:

Now I will admit, I read this one after I watched the TV series, so again I’m not sure how that affected my opinion as obviously you do tend to cling to whichever one you consume first. But anyway, I read this back in 2020 and I was really expecting to love it, because I so enjoyed the show. However I was wrong! I found it very hard to follow what was actually going on in the book (a problem I didn’t have with the show) and in fact if I’d not watched the show first, I’m not sure I would have had any clue at all because the story keeps going off on these random tangents that don’t really make sense and end up having little relevance to the plot as a whole. The humour also felt incredibly dated, I mean I would have been surprising if it hadn’t given that the book came out in the 90s but just because it was the 90s, doesn’t mean that the sexist, racist and homophobic observations in the book should have been tolerated then. I also found the characters, aside from Aziraphale and Crowley oddly flat. You can read my full review of the book here.

TV Thoughts:

I really enjoyed the TV show. From my later reading of the book, it was clear that a lot had been streamlined and that made the plot so much easier to follow and engage with. I loved Aziraphale and Crowley, Michael Sheen and David Tennant were both excellent in their roles and I found I connected with the characters really easily, and it was funny without a lot of the more dated humour from the book. My mum and I watched it together during lockdown and we were so hooked by it that I think we finished it in about two days. I have to admit, though I’m excited to see Season 2, I’m not entirely sure if it was necessary? But anything for more David Tennant and Michael Sheen!

TV or Book Judgement:

I’m going with TV here. The main thing I liked about the book was Aziraphale and Crowley but aside from that, I found watching the TV show to be a much more pleasant experience, largely because it was less confusing! I definitely think the streamlining needed to bring the book to screen worked in its favour to remove some of the more irrelevant tangents that were present in the book. I would definitely recommend consuming the show in TV version first because I found my prior knowledge did help me somewhat in understanding what was actually going on in the book, without it, I would have been completely lost!

So there we go, that’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie. I will be back next month (hopefully a little earlier than this time!), talking about Season 2 of Shadow and Bone (just over two weeks to go guys!) and the book it is primarily based on, Siege and Storm.

Book Vs Movie: Life After Life

Hi everyone! I know it’s been absolutely ages since I did one of these Book Vs Movie posts, but if you saw my 2023 goals post for Top Ten Tuesday a few weeks back, you’ll know that one of my goals was get this feature up and running again more regularly this year. I am going to try to keep it monthly, but life does sometimes get in the way so we’ll see how things go with it! Anyway, for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’m actually going to be talking about a TV adaptation and sharing my thoughts on the BBC miniseries Life After Life and the book by Kate Atkinson.

Book Thoughts:

I did read the book after I watched the TV series, so I don’t know how much that impacted my opinion as I already had the one version of the story in my mind and I have found that you do tend to prefer whichever version of the story was the first one you came across. But anyway, I’d not heard of Life After Life until I watched the TV series, so I picked it up because I had enjoyed the show and ended up somewhat disappointed. I found the book very bloated with a lot of unnecessary detail and plotlines that seemed designed merely to extend the story as long as possible past several very natural endpoints. The narrative also felt very stilted and not particularly cohesive, more like we were just moving from one vignette to the next that telling a complete story.

If you’d like to see my more detailed thoughts, you can read my review of the book here:
https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/24/life-after-life-review-audiobook/

TV Thoughts:

I enjoyed the TV adaptation! I found later from reading the novel that the TV series had streamlined a lot of the more unnecessary sections from the book (like the extended section where Ursula is living with Eva Braun and Hitler in one life!) and I think the TV series managed to keep more forward momentum than the book, the book skips around in time a lot where the TV series, whilst still sticking to the conceit that Ursula lives her life over and over again, the TV series generally moves forward each time Ursula dies with a new event further on in her next life than she left off in her last which gave it a greater sense of narrative cohesion. I also thought Thomasin McKenzie did a really great job as Ursula and made her feel less bland on screen than she did on the page.

TV or Book Judgement:

I think it’s an easy TV for me here. I did like some things about the book, I loved the conceit (obviously as I’d already seen the show) and I enjoyed the narration of the audiobook, but I feel like I just found this particular story more enjoyable in the TV format. The streamlining necessary to bring the page to the screen definitely worked in the show’s favour as it meant some of the more bloated parts of the book got cut, and the presentation of the time loop storyline in a slightly more linear manner was helpful, I felt far less confused about where we were in Ursula’s timeline in the show. If I was going to recommend a way to consume this story, I think I’d recommend the show above the book to be honest.

So there we go, that’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie. I will be back next month, finally talking about Good Omens and its TV adaptation, like I promised you all I would years ago!

Book Vs Movie: One Of Us Is Lying

Hi everyone! For this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’m going to be talking about the recently released TV adaptation of One of Us Is Lying, which came out a couple of weeks ago on Netflix. I know I said I was going to do The Time Traveler’s Wife, but I thought this one was more timely since I literally just watched it last week, so my thoughts are a bit more fresh.

Book Thoughts:

Honestly I found the book a little underwhelming. It was a decent enough mystery, but I didn’t find myself massively surprised by any of the twists. I also found the characters to be kind of flat and I didn’t love the ultimate resolution to the mystery, I found that kind of disappointing. You can read my more detailed thoughts about the book in my full review:

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/01/one-of-us-is-lying-review-e-arc/

TV Thoughts:

I really enjoyed the TV adaptation! It was a little slow to get going, I’d say I wasn’t really invested till about the third or fourth episode, but once I was, I was really glued to it. I enjoyed the characters a lot more than I did in the book, I think the TV show did a better job of rounding them all out, and I liked some of the new characters introduced for the adaptation, particularly Janae. I also felt like I got a better idea of who Simon was in the show than in the book. I also actually preferred the way that the show resolved Simon’s murder, I thought it made a lot more sense than the resolution from the book and was a lot more interesting. The first season left off on a serious cliff-hanger as well, so I’m looking forward to seeing Season 2 (which it has already been renewed for).

TV or Book Judgement:

TV! I can imagine that those who liked the book more than I did may have had some issues with the changes that were made in the adaptation, but I felt a lot of the changes resolved problems that I’d had with the book, and I found the characters more engaging on screen than I did in the book.

That’s all for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’ll be back next month with another one, talking about 13 Reasons Why and it’s Netflix adaptation.

Book Vs Movie: Little Fires Everywhere

Hi everyone! I’m so sorry it’s been so long since I did one of these, I really didn’t mean for it to be, I just got very busy last year once I started working at the vaccine centre and didn’t have as much time to blog as I would have liked, but I’m determined to try and keep all my regular features going more, well regularly, this year! Today’s Book Vs Movie is actually going to be a Book Vs TV, I’ll be talking about the Hulu mini-series of Little Fires Everywhere, and comparing it to the book by Celeste Ng.

Book Thoughts:

So I actually watched the mini-series before I read the book, I don’t know how much that coloured my opinion of the book, but I have found that you do tend to prefer whichever version of the story you consume first. I read Little Fires Everywhere last year, on audio, and I was kind of disappointed. The characters felt kind of flat to me and it tried to do too much with too few pages. Plus I found the narrator kind of grating, which is never good for an audiobook!

TV Thoughts:

I really enjoyed the TV mini-series! It was so well cast, Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon played against each other really well and the teen actors who played the kids were also really well cast. Having now read the book, I can say that it streamlined a lot of the many subplots really well and the characters had a lot more depth in the TV series than I felt they had in the book. There was also a lot more nuance given to Elena and Mia, it wasn’t as simple as Elena=bad, Mia=good like the book.

TV or Book Judgement:

I’m going to have to go with TV here! Sometimes a story suits a certain medium more than another, and even though it started life as a book, I think Little Fires Everywhere worked better for TV, the more streamlined story and nuanced characters fixed a lot of the issues that I had with the book (albeit I did read it after watching the show!).

That’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’ll be back next month with another one, I thought since it was February, I’d try for a romance one, the romance books I’ve read are few and far between as it’s not my favourite genre, but one I have read is The Time Traveler’s Wife, so I thought that one might be an interesting one to do as I have SALTY thoughts about the film!

Book Vs Movie: Shadow and Bone

Hi everyone! In a surprise to exactly no one, today’s Book Vs Movie is actually a Book Vs TV as I’ll be talking about Netflix’s adaptation of Shadow and Bone (and to a limited extent Six of Crows) as like many of you I’m sure, I binged it over the past weekend.

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Book Thoughts:

So the show largely focuses on the characters of Six of Crows rather than the plot of the book (since Shadow and Bone is set several years before and the show combines the Crows into the Shadow and Bone plot) but I’ll talk about my thoughts on both. I read Six of Crows before Shadow & Bone, in 2017, and I really enjoyed it, I loved the characters and the world and though the story had its pacing problems, it was still a really engaging read.

Shadow and Bone on the other hand, I felt a little more lukewarm about. It’s clear that Bardugo has improved a lot since her debut, and whilst Shadow and Bone wasn’t a bad book, it felt a lot like all the other fantasy books which were published at the same time. Alina wasn’t as fun a protagonist as the Crows and like Six of Crows, it was kind of slow to get going and the payoff wasn’t as good.

Here are my full reviews of both books if you want to see my more detailed thoughts:

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/10/six-of-crows-six-of-crows-1-review/

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/14/shadow-and-bone-shadow-and-bone-1-review/

TV Thoughts:

I was a little worried when I heard that they were going to adapt Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone together, as I couldn’t really see how they were going to overlap the two stories, given that Six of Crows takes place in a different part of the world and takes place several years after the end of the events of the Grisha trilogy. I have to say though, I was really pleasantly surprised! I thought the crossover worked well, having the Crows integrated into the Shadow and Bone story made me enjoy it more than I did in the book and the way they did it made a lot of sense (having the Crows be on a job to “steal” Alina). The Nina and Matthias story didn’t fit quite as naturally, I understand why they wanted to have their backstory in the first series, but if you hadn’t read the book, then I imagine you’d be wondering why the show kept cutting to the pair of them. I loved the cast, I thought they all did a really good job with their characters (Jesper, Nina and The Darkling were particular standouts to me, but I loved everyone). I actually wish they’d had a couple more episodes as I think things were rushed a little in the last two episodes! It was clear though that the creators really loved the books, and were faithful to them and the characters whilst also doing something new which I loved.

TV or Book Judgement:

This is a really tough one because there are a few things I would have liked to see more of from the Crows’ backstories, but as the series is mostly based on Shadow and Bone, I would say I enjoyed the TV series more! I think having the Crows integrated into the Shadow and Bone story really lifted it up for me, and that Jessie Mei Li and Archie Renaux as Alina and Mal made me like both characters more than I did in the book. Also Ben Barnes as The Darkling? Perfection. I really hope they get many more seasons of the show, because I can’t wait to see Nikolai and I would love to see the Crows’ stories from the books on screen.

That’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I will be back next month with another Book Vs TV, talking about Good Omens and its TV adaptation.

Book Vs Movie: Moxie

Hi everyone! I know, it’s been ages since I last did one of these, they kind of fell by the wayside at the end of last year/beginning of this year, but they’re back now and I’m hoping to keep up a more regular posting schedule for the rest of 2021. This month, I’m talking about Moxie, which had its Netflix adaptation released at the beginning of March.

Book Thoughts:

I read this back in 2018, and I thought it was a fun, fast read. It’s fairly simplistic and lacks some nuance (it’s very into the whole “girl power” version of feminism) but I love how focused it was on female empowerment, I enjoyed the main character Viv and the way she grew into herself through the book and I loved how central female friendships were as they’re something I always enjoy. I did think the attempts at intersectionality were somewhat clumsy though, as it felt very surface level and the POC characters didn’t feel particularly well developed. Here is my full review of the book if you want to read more of my thoughts:

https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/moxie-review/

Movie Thoughts:

I liked the film in general. I think it was a tad long in places, and I think the reasons for Viv starting Moxie were more fleshed out in the book: she’s shy but not quite to the extent of the movie and she already has the passion about the sexist behaviour of boys at her school being wrong, so it doesn’t seem quite as much of a 180 when she decides to start Moxie as it does in the film. The intersectionality is still a bit clumsy, the movie does try to address this issue from the book but it doesn’t always succeed at it as it often seems like the WOC in the film are there to prop up Viv rather than having much of a story of their own. It also felt a little lengthy for an adaptation of a fairly short book! I did like that the film really embraced female friendship, and I think there was more of a feel of camaraderie in the film than the book. I didn’t think the subplot with her mum’s boyfriend was as well done in the film as the book though, in the book, Viv also gets mad at her mum’s boyfriend at dinner, but it’s because he has a Republican supporting sticker on his car, so she essentially prejudges him for his political affiliations, which still isn’t great, but it made more sense than in the film where she blows up at everyone seemingly for no reason. Overall, it is an enjoyable film and a good adaptation of the book, but it does fall short in some areas.

Movie or Book Judgement:

I think I’ll go with the book for this one! It was tricky to choose, because I did like both, and both shared some of the same shortcomings, but ultimately, the fact that the reasons for Viv starting Moxie are clearer in the book put it slightly ahead of the film for me. I would still recommend the film though!

That’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’ll be back next month with a VERY EXCITING Book Vs Movie, as I’ll be talking about the Netflix adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse (the first series focuses on Shadow and Bone and the backstories of characters from Six of Crows), so I’m sure that’s one a lot of you will be excited for!

Book Vs Movie: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Hi everyone! It’s the last day of September, so I just have time to get in a Book Vs Movie post for this month before we head into OCTOBER (HOW? Time this year has been a real trip!). This month, I’m actually doing a Book Vs Movie Vs TV as the books I’m talking about have more than one adaptation. The series I’m talking about is of course, A Series of Unfortunate Events:

Book Thoughts:

A Series Of Unfortunate Events was a childhood staple for me, I used to go to the library every single week to get the newest book and I absolutely loved them, they’re dark and strange and witty and basically very Jo. Did they get a bit repetitive? Sure, especially in the first nine books where they’re largely just trying to avoid being caught by Olaf, but they were definitely very engaging reads.

Movie Thoughts:

AGH NO. Basically this movie tried to do way too much, they combined the first three books into one film and it didn’t feel like they really did any of them justice. I also didn’t really feel like Jim Carrey got the balance between sinister and funny for Count Olaf very well, but to be honest, whatever I see Jim Carrey in, he always just seems to be himself in whatever he’s in.

TV Thoughts:

I thought Netflix did a really good job with the series! They were a lot more faithful to the books than the film, and I loved how they included direct passages of Lemony Snicket’s monologues from the books. The TV series allowed for more time to fully explore the books’ events with two episodes per book, and they really kept to the tone of the books very well. The actors were really great, Neil Patrick Harris did a great job with Olaf, Patrick Warburton was brilliant as Lemony Snicket and Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes were great as Violet and Klaus as well.

Movie, Book or TV judgement:

Ah it’s quite difficult because I love the books and I love the TV show (and also it’s been a lot longer since I read books than when I saw the TV show). I think the books potentially just edge it, but honestly they’re both pretty equal!

That’s all for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I’ll be back next month with another Book Vs Movie, since it’s October and Halloween month, I’m going to go with a spooky book and adaptation, and talk about Coraline, and it’s movie adaptation.