Five Best Book to Film Adaptations

Film adaptations of books have been around ever since the medium of film has been around. Prior to film adaptations, there were stage plays based off of books. In fact, there seems to be a belief that an author has only truly "made it" when one of their works is adapted into a film. In the last few decades, the number of film adaptations has increased exponentially, but just because more books have been made into films doesn't mean those films are entertaining or good adaptations of their source material.

Today, I'm going to discuss the five best adaptations I've seen. In order to be fair, I'm limiting the list to books I've actually read and the subsequent film that was made adapting it that I've seen. For example, I haven't read the series that The Golden Compass is based on, so I can't really talk about how bad of an adaptation the 2007 film is, but I've heard its not great.

I asked people on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook for their feedback, and there were a few honorable mentions: The Martian, Moby Dick, Fight Club, Get Shorty and No Country for Old Men

With the honorable mentions out of the way, here's my list of the five best book-to-film adaptations:




5) Sense and Sensibility

I know this might seem like a random first choice, but this movie got right what many other period pieces, especially adaptations of period novels, get wrong. The characterization, especially of Eleanor and Marianne Dashwood, is consistent. The relationship between the two sisters is captured and translated beautifully. The film works because it translates the story into a different medium without losing the atmosphere.

4)  To Kill A Mockingbird

This film is kind of the perfect storm of amazing screenwriting and phenomenal casting choices. Gregory Peck seemed to be almost born to play Atticus Finch. The key thing that makes this film so effective, and such a good adaptation, is that it doesn’t try to shy away from the subject matter. It doesn’t try to minimize the injustice and, given the period when the film was made, that very easily could have happened.



3) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I don’t really have a ton to say about this one. the book is an exciting spy thriller and the film is as well. There were some changes, but those changes were minimal and are more for clarity than anything else.



2) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

While later films caught flack for omitting characters and storylines, or changes in characterization, the book reads almost identical to the screenplay. Very little is changed between book and screen, very little is omitted. The production encompasses the wonder of the world of Harry Potter in a way that later films seemed to waver on.

1) Lord of the Rings

They said it couldn’t be done. For years, people believed Tolkien’s opus was unadaptable due to the sheer size and scale of the story. It wasn’t possible to do in one film, but three films were a much different story. Peter Jackson also managed to do this without making too many changes to the source material either. Some characters feature more in the films than in the book, simply to avoid introducing a character only to have them drop out of the story after doing one or two things. Yes, Tom Bombadil is absent from the story entirely and yes, the Scouring of the Shire is only seen as a vision, but for the most part, the story is exactly as Tolkien wrote it. Additionally, there’s a level of sincerity that other films, which were released after Lord of the Rings was so successful, lack. The people making these movies loved the source material and wanted to give it the best possible treatment for the silver screen.

This is my list for the best book-to-film adaptations. My list of the worst ones will be coming soon, but I wanted to start out positively. What are some of your favorite adaptations?

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Until All Curses Are Lifted

Until All Curses Are Lifted is a 2019 young adult epic fantasy novel by Tim Frankovich. It was released in August of 2019 and published by Warpsteel Press. The author provided me with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The novel takes place in a fantasy world where the law is imposed by magic. If a person breaks the law, they’re cursed in one way or another. The only exception to this rule are the reigning six Lords of the world, Antises, who figured out a way centuries ago to bypass that particular rule. The story follows two protagonists: Marshal and Seri. Marshal was born cursed as punishment for the crimes of his father. He discovers that he’s heir to immense magical power and this leads him to flee for his life because his half-brother wants the power for himself and hires an assassin to pursue him. No one has ever escaped a curse, but Marshal, his mother Aelia and another boy from their village named Victor, journey to lift Marshal’s curse so that he can truly be safe. Seri, meanwhile, wants to become the first female mage and the most powerful mage in history. The magic that holds Antises together is failing and no one knows why. While the ground itself shakes, someone starts murdering mages. In danger from all directions, Seri must learn how to use her unique abilities before everything falls apart. As both Marshal and Seri go on their respective journeys, neither knows they’re being watched from another realm.

Marshal might be the first main character of his kind that I’ve read. As explained above, Marshal is cursed due to the actions of his father. His curse is that he’s unable to communicate. He can’t speak, or make any type of sound, he can’t use a form of sign language and the only way he can get any information across is by nodding or shaking his head, and that’s only if he remembers what each gesture means. This means that, while the reader sees things from Marshal’s perspective through his narration and thoughts, we’re the only ones who know what he’s thinking, the other characters do not. Since he can’t speak, many characters believe he isn’t aware of what’s going on or doesn’t fully understand things happening around him, but he does, he just can’t express that. At the beginning of the novel, Aelia, Marshal’s mother, is the only person who seems to care about him. Everyone in the village, and the world at large, loathe people who are cursed, even children who were born that way. Aelia is the driving force behind Marshal’s story and one of the strongest, most complex characters I’ve read in a while. She doesn’t care where she has to go or what she has to do, she’s going to get Marshal’s curse lifted. At the same time, she’s never willing to tell anyone much about her plans, keeping things very close to her chest. Seri is the other main character and she is committed to not only being the first female mage, but also the greatest mage of all time. She arrives at Zes Sivas, where mages are trained, to learn magic as magic is causing the world to fall apart. Seri and her fellow acolytes are the highlights of the chapters taking place at Zes Sivas. They’re dripping with personality and agency. One of my favorite traits of Seri’s is how curious she is about what’s going on around her and how tenacious she is about finding answers. Everyone else just wants to stop the world from falling apart, while she wants to understand why it’s falling apart to begin with. There’s a whole host of other characters, both good and bad, that I enjoyed in this story, and it would take me forever to run through all of them. Frankovich did an excellent job writing interesting and unique characters.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the way the alternating POVs is used to tell the story. Marshal’s journey shows the reader the world in the way an average person would see it. His group travels to different lands, meets people of different cultures and gives a more down-to-earth perspective of things. Seri’s story, meanwhile, reveals information about Antises in a broader sense. Through her studying magic, the reader learns how magic works in this world. Through Zes Sivas preparing for an annual ritual, the six different lands are explained, including current tensions between the lands. Seri and Marshal’s stories do overlap, but not until close to the end of the novel, which I liked because it gave both storylines a chance to breathe and develop without the plots contriving to bring them together. The story ends exactly where it needs to, and concludes enough of the story to be satisfying while providing the framework for the sequel, which according to the excerpt at the end, is titled Until All Bonds Are Broken.

This book surprised me. I feel like a lot of young adult fantasy, including young adult epic fantasy, tends to shy away from some of the more nitty-gritty aspects of life.  While there isn’t gratuitous violence, Until All Curses Are Lifted doesn’t shy away from it either. There’s a fair amount of violence, bloodshed and death. The same is true for discussions of sex and other topics some books like to gloss over or pretend don’t exist. While I found those aspects of the story refreshing, what really surprised me was the themes of this story and how deep some of those themes run. One of the major themes is about power and how it corrupts those who wield it when left unchecked. That theme isn’t uncommon, but here it’s shown, both literally and figuratively, and runs through multiple storylines, not just one. There’s also something to be said for its message about fear of the unknown or unfamiliar. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this book.

While I enjoyed Until All Curses Are Lifted, I do have some criticism to share. The pacing is a little strange. Obviously, a fight scene or scene with a lot of tension is going to feel more fast-paced than just two people talking, but there were parts of this story where the pacing of a scene didn’t make sense for what was happening within a scene. Likewise, the way the story is broken up into chapters felt weird to me. There were a few instances where two consecutive chapters could’ve been one single chapter instead. There are 430 pages in the book, and it’s 83 chapters when it could’ve been closer to around 50 if some of the chapters had been combined. I know it’s not a huge deal, but I did find that choice to be a little odd. While I enjoyed the story overall, and the ending, I do think there could’ve been a little bit more foreshadowing about some of the revelations at the end, but I can understand why Frankovich might be holding off until the sequel to delve into some of those things. I have some complaints about the novel, but they didn’t distract from my enjoyment of the book.

Until All Curses Are Lifted is a solid epic YA fantasy. The characters are well-written, the world is fascinating and the story is refreshing. I look forward to seeing more of it in the sequel when it’s released. I would recommend it to any epic fantasy fan, both teenagers and adults. It would be especially enjoyable for readers that like hybrid magic systems.

Rating: 3.9 stars

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The February Short List

Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

The Short List is the list of books that I read in a given month, but for one reason or another, I didn't write a full review for. I still wanted to be able to talk about these books, and I've found that this format is the easiest way to do so.

The Devil In the White City by Erik Larson

Blurb: Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

My Thoughts: This was a re-read for me, so the story wasn't able to surprise me. That being said, this feels like it's two separate books. One accounting the story behind the World's Fair in Chicago, and another about H.H. Holmes crimes as one of America's first serial killers. It's understandable why both stories could be told together, but they do feel a bit disconnected. The writing itself is good and Larson did an extensive amount of research, but this wasn't my favorite read. It's an interesting read, even if the two plots feel disjointed at times.

Gheist by Richard Mosses

Blurb: After losing a card game to Las Vegas gangster Danton, Kat McKay is kidnapped, her heart removed from her chest. Bizarrely, Kat wakes up with a newfound power: she can see the dead. Together with a motley crew of criminal ghosts, including mobster Clint, stage magician Melchior and hitman Jack The Knife, she sets on a quest to restore their freedom - and her heart. But who is worthy of her trust, and can she regain what was taken from her?

My Thoughts: This book has a great premise but not a good execution. From the description, I thought it would be more interesting than it was. The story was slow to start off, and even after the inciting incident, things moved slower than I would've liked. There was a great deal of focus on side character's backstories that I didn't feel were that important. I was expecting Ocean's Eleven, but with ghosts and instead, the story was a normal heist story with very little supernatural elements thrown in.

  

Crisis on Infinite Earths Giant #1 and Crisis on Infinite Earths Giant #2

Summary: Between December of 2019 and January of 2020, the CW's Arrowverse had its big crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earth, which they've been building towards for six years. These two comics are a tie-in for that event, with two all new stories, and are also a reprint of some issues from the original Crisis on Infinite Earths event.

My Thoughts: I'm a big comic book fan. I'm also a big fan of Arrow. While I have some strong opinions about the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" television event, I did enjoy these two comics.



E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

Summary: This book outlines the history of Einstein's famous formulation, which was overlooked when he released it in 1905, and delves into how groundbreaking such a simple equation has been, the discoveries made as a result of its application and what it means to our understanding of the universe and the future of said universe.

My Thoughts: This was a re-read for me. I first read this book in high school and remember thinking how cool it was that E=mc² led to such a diverse range of discoveries. Reading it now as a college graduate with a degree in math and having taken higher-level physics courses, I can fully both understand and enjoy the content of this book. It's an interesting read, especially for anyone with an interest in physics, and poses some thought-provoking questions towards the end.

Those were all of the books I completed in February but did not write a full review for. What are some books that you read this months? Any recommendations?

Odriel's Heirs

Odriel's Heirs is a 2020 young adult high fantasy novel by Hayley Reese Chow. It is being self-published by the author and is scheduled for release on March 1, 2020. The e-book is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and you can purchase it here.  The author provided me with an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The novel's blurb reads as follows:  As the Dragon Heir, seventeen-year-old Kaia inherited the power of flame to protect her homeland from a godlike necromancer’s undead army. But after centuries of peace, the necromancer has faded to myth, and the Dragon Heir is feared by the people. Persecuted and cast out, Kaia struggles to embrace and control her seemingly useless gift while confined to her family’s farm. But when the necromancer’s undead terrorize the land once again, Kaia runs away to join the battle. With the help of her childhood rival, the handsome Shadow Heir, and a snarky, cursed cat, Kaia must figure out how to control both her fire and her confidence in time to save Okarria. If she fails, she will sacrifice her family, her new friends, and the enchanting world she has only just begun to see. And time is running out.

Before I discuss what I think of the story overall, I'd like to talk about the characters within the story. Kaia is the main character, and our point-of-view character, for the novel. I liked her character, I enjoyed her growth as a character from a girl who's unsure of herself and her powers to a confident and powerful fighter. She had fears and doubts and agency which made her story compelling. Even when she did things that frustrated me, it didn't make me stop liking the character, I just didn't like the choice she made. Best of all, she's a seventeen-year-old character that reads as being a seventeen-year-old. Along her journey, Kaia encounters, and the reader is introduced to, an array of colorful and interesting characters. There is Klaus, the Shadow Heir, and Kaia's childhood rival. At the beginning, he mostly serves as a foil to Kaia as she struggles to gain control. She's unsure of her abilities, while he's confident in his. She's optimistic while he's most pessimistic. Their relationship at the beginning can best be described as "playfully antagonistic"; they aren't friends but for the most part, their fighting isn't serious. Klaus is a well-rounded character in his own right, having needed to come to terms with his own abilities long before the current crisis arose. I liked Kaia and Klaus, but my favorite character by far is Gus, Kaia's ragehound, who serves as a quasi-therapy dog making sure that Kaia keeps her emotions in check. Because as the Dragon Heir, Kaia sometimes experiences something called Dragon Rage, which is pretty self-explanatory. Gus is a good boy and deserves nice things. There are a number of side characters that I could discuss, but it would take me a long time to say what I need to say about all of them. Overall, I liked the diversity with these characters. I liked the fact that characters didn't drop out of the story entirely after they served the initial purpose they seemed to have. I enjoyed the simplicity of the main villain, the necromancer Nifras, as well. He didn't have some complicated motivation where he thought he was doing the right thing. He wanted to use his Lost, the term for the undead in this world, to overrun the world and cover the planet in darkness. Villains that are evil, simply to be evil, are great when utilized properly and Chow did that here. This novel had excellent characters.

Now that I've finished gushing about the characters, let's talk about the story itself. Reading Odriel's Heirs, it's easy to see what works inspired this world and this story, and there's a great deal of variety within that pool. At the same time, while the author took inspiration from Tolkien and others, the story is its own and not an attempt to retread old grounds. I liked the world-building overall, in that there was some information given about specific groups and races, but not everything was spelled out. The reader was able to fill in the blanks and create their own vision of parts of this world. I enjoyed the plot of this novel because things escalated in a way that makes sense. Kaia leaves home to save a handful of people, which turns into needing to save a village and that snowballs into needing to save the world from the undead. The stakes keep getting raised, but they aren't going from very low stakes to extremely high stakes right away. I appreciated that all fight and battle scenes were giving an appropriate number of pages to take place. Short fight scenes didn't run as long as the battle that's going to have more lasting and widespread consequences which is exactly how it should be. Most stories have several plot twists, with some being smaller than others, and this story is no different. I don't spoil books as a rule, and I'm definitely not going to ruin the plot twists of a book that, at the time that I'm writing this, hasn't been released yet. What I will say is that the twist that happens towards the end of the book surprised me in the best way. I didn't see it coming, but on reflection, I could see the hints and pieces of foreshadowing that preceded it. Overall, the novel has a good, solid plot with some fun surprises thrown in.

One of my favorite parts of this book relates to Kaia's character arc, but I wanted to discuss it on its own. That is the focus on problems Kaia faces due to her being the Dragon Heir. Inwardly, there's a great deal of self-doubt and struggle she faces with her role as the Dragon Heir. In-universe it's explained that only the first-born child of the Dragon Heir will inherit his or her parent's gift. Kaia's father is the Dragon Heir and she is also the Dragon Heir because she was born six minutes before her twin brother. One of her biggest struggles is dealing with the fact that, maybe, her brother should be the one with this gift. She wonders if she's going to be enough to stop Nifras. Is she able to live up to the destiny she's supposed to fulfill? At the beginning of the story, she's not sure that she can. She messes up, she fails and she has to learn not only how to use her gifts, but why she's meant to be the Dragon Heir. Aside from Kaia's inner struggle, there's also a degree of outer conflict around her gifts. Normal people are scared of Kaia, scared of what she can do. Even as a child, people were wary and cruel to her. Through a few short interactions, the reader gets to see what the downside to being a Chosen One is. Or what it's like when the people you're meant to defend and protect don't actually want you around to do that. I found the focus on Kaia needing to accept, but internally and externally, that she is the Dragon Heir and that she isn't meant to be normal, to be interesting.

While I enjoyed the book overall, there are a few pieces of criticism I need to share.While the novel has a good, solid plot, the pacing needs a little bit of work. It's a bit too fast-paced in certain parts, making it easy for a reader to get lost or need to go back and reread to figure out what's going on. I liked Chow's writing style overall, but there were some aspects that are indicative of this being a debut novel. Mostly, this was when she told the reader things rather than showing it. This is her first novel, and as a debut, it's excellent, but occasionally, I came across things that reminded me of it being her first novel. The third, and final, criticism I have is about the romance in the story. I didn't think that the romance was bad, but it was a bit predictable. It was predictable, which isn't necessarily bad, and it somewhat relied on a trope that I don't enjoy reading. However, the romance didn't overshadow the rest of the story, so while I'm so-so about that, it didn't take away from my overall enjoyment. 


I loved this book more than I expected to. It told an amazing story and it doesn't read like an author's first novel. While not perfect, it's a solid, enjoyable story. I recommend it to any fantasy reader that finds the premise intriguing. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel's release, which doesn't have a release date, but the author has announced that there will be one. I'd like to thank Hayley Reese Chow again for providing me with an advance copy of novel so that I could write this review.

Rating: 4.7 stars

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The Cake Flavored Book Tag

I was tagged by Krista over at The Bookish HedgeMom last week. It took me a little while before I had time to sit down and do this tag, but I finally was able to. (Yay me!) Anyway, let's get into this tag.

Chocolate Cake: A Dark Book That You Loved


The Power by Naomi Alderman

This is a very dark story, but I loved how well the author committed to the concept. I also enjoy books where the premise isn't inherently bad (in this case, women all developing the same power) but humanity turns this neutral aspect into something bad. Or maybe i'm just a sucker for a "humans are the real monster" theme. This was one of my favorite books that I read last year and I would recommend it to anyone interested in speculative sci-fi.

Vanilla Cake: A Favorite Light Read


Holes by Louis Sachar

Holes is just a great book. It makes me nostalgic, it's a quick read. I don't know if everyone would say it counts as "light" but I categorize it that way. I often need to be in a certain mood for certain books, but no matter what "mood" I'm in, Holes is a good option. It was one of my favorite books as a kid.

Red Velvet: A Book That Gives You Mixed Emotions


The Giver by Lois Lowry

It's not The Giver that gives me mixed feelings, but the later books in The Giver quartet. The Giver was amazing. Gathering Blue was amazing, Messenger was fine and Son I did not like. So, I'm torn between my love for The Giver and annoyance at how the rest of the series went. In hindsight, it would've been better if there wasn't a series at all.

Cheesecake: A Book That You Recommend to Everyone


Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I loved this book. I heard it was good and I was surprised to find that I agreed with the majority here. Given that I tend to read either fantasy or science fiction books, this is my current go-to for people who tend to avoid those two genres. I liked the story, I liked the writing and I highly recommend.

Coffee Cake: A Book That You Started But Never Finished


The Savior's Champion by Jenna Moreci

I went into The Savior's Champion expecting to like it. I'd heard great reviews about it. Other readers and bloggers who I follow gave it a lot of praise. I really thought I'd like this book, but I just couldn't get into it. I had trouble immersing myself in the story. So, when I reached a point about 1/3 of the way through the book, and I found that I wasn't enjoying it, I decided to DNF it. I might revisit it later, but for now, I've stopped reading it.

Carrot Cake: A Book With Great Writing


Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

The book that launched a Broadway sensation. While Wicked (the musical) was inspired by this book, I feel like I should make it clear that the stories differ a lot. The book has more adult content and leans more into themes of what separates good from evil. All of that being said, the book is exceptionally well-written. Maguire is able to both recapture the wonder of Oz while also making it his own. The use of imagery and symbolism in this book deserves to be praised.

Tiramisu: A Book That Left You Wanting More


A Dream Within A Dream by Kristina Mahr

This book left me wanting more in a bad way. The conclusion felt very rushed and I just wanted more from the story. Too much attention was given to the romance aspect and not enough to real conflict or characters that the writer had spent two novels building towards. It missed out on a lot of interesting plot-points in my opinion.

Cupcakes: A Series With 4 or More Books


A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

This series was the one of the first, if not the first, series that I read to completion. Like with Holes, some of my love for it comes from nostalgia, but these books are also unique and whimsical in an unexpected way. I love this series. I love the writing, I love the literary tricks Snicket employs within each book. I'm also a fan of the Netflix series that these books were adapted into.

Fruit Cake: A Book That Wasn't What You Anticipated


The Girl the Sea Gave Back by Adrienne Young

This book makes the list because I didn't expect it to be anywhere near as good as it is. I expected it to be a run-of-the-mill YA fantasy story. I had every reason to expect it to be completely average. The writing was better than I expected, as was the plot. There were interesting and unique aspects to the story that I wasn't expecting. This book took me by surprise, so it's the first thing that comes to mind for this category. 

I tag:

• Anyone who finds this tag interesting and wants to participate. I can't think of specific people to tag at the moment

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