Book Meme: Parts 6 and 7

Part 6: A book that was adapted into a movie you liked better than the book (or vice versa, or both): Oh, this is an easy one: Lord of the Rings! I can't STAND the books (oddly, I love The Silmarillion. So....go figure), but I am a huge fan of the movies. All of Tolkien's intense verbiage translates perfectly to the screen, because what he takes fifteen pages to describe (usually a tree or a lake) can be captured by the sweeping camera in fifteen seconds. Beautiful beautiful films.

(hard to resist, no?)

A book that I love whose movie I can't stand would definitely be The Dark Is Rising: The Seeker. It should never have happened--the mere existence of that film is a crime against people who love reading. Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence of YA/kids fantasy books is gorgeous, smart, moving, and sometimes very deep. The film made out out of the second book in the sequence is stupid and clumsy, and holds none of the magic of the source.

Part 7: Least favorite plot device used in books you otherwise enjoy: Hoom. I don't really like the "gay best friend" trope often used in female-voiced books (chick lit, contemporary YA fiction, a few others). It sells gay male voices short and makes the female main character seem shallow, and is a lazy way for the author to appear hip or whatnot.