Top 5 (books you liked better than the adaptation) Tuesday

I think it’s almost second nature, as readers, to say that the books were better than the adaptations, so let’s look at some books I preferred to the adaptations! Also, I think you look like you need to go look at Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads and see which books she preferred over the adaptations 👀

📚🚀📚

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead – I was thinking of either putting this in this prompt or by the books I want to see as a tv series 😂 but I watched the movie the other month and… yeah, no thanks. This is going in the naughty box – not I don’t want to see it as a tv series – but the movie was just… so bad and cringeworthy, just so so much. They took what was a fantastic and adventurous YA paranormal fantasy series that shows you girls can be smart and brave and strong… and made it into every other typical YA story out there (but also please don’t think that I’m hating on typical YA stories).

AND NOW UPDATE: We have a TV series in the making!!!

A Living Nightmare by Darren Shan – DON’T EVEN get me started on absolutely all the things that went wrong with this. I think mostly is that they casted John C. Reilly as Mr. Crepsley – whom I’ve always seen as a super creepy and old guy. Just, so many things! Trust me, don’t go ANYWHERE near the movie because it is the worst.

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal by Louise Rennison – This was my ultimate JAM back in school. It’s absolutely super cringy, sure, but it’s the best kind of cringy. I learnt like so many terms from this series (that I’ll never be able to use because either the series is now too old and those terms aren’t used anymore 😅 and also because even though South Africa has quite a bit of British influence, I don’t think we’re that much that we can use the terms in the book 😂 As absolutely hilarious as they are.

The movie… is not so great as the book. While it sort of does capture the beauty we had in the books, it just just does that So yeah, I’d much rather stick to the books for this 🤷🏻‍♀️ Think of all those lists they made in the books – it’s a bit hard to push that over to the movies.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini – I’m pretty sure everyone reading knows this but if you don’t, hi, I’m DB and I like warm hugs dragons. I absolutely love the Inheritance Cycle, it’s one of my favourite fantasy series, one of my internet usernames used to be Saphira, because, yes, I’m THAT nerd. I used to pore over the glossary until I could pronounce all the words confidently. And then the movie happened. And it was a disaster. I’ve blocked most of it out so I can’t even tell you if they included Angela and Solembum. I don’t think I liked how they showed Arya. I think I actually started to dislike Nasuada because of the movie (in the books, she’s my favourite character). I don’t know which direction they were trying to go in but the ONLY right move they made was to cast Robert Carlyle as the villain, because he is fantastic and plays those type of roles fantastically.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke – Okay, so the casting was actually good. If you’ve read the books’ dedications, you know Funke mentions she sees Brendan Fraser as Mo – which I totally agree with. And you can always add Paul Bettany to any movie and I’ll watch it (and in this one he has long hair so 👍🏻👍🏻). I just think they lost sight of what the book’s really about and didn’t bring the full magic of the series page-to-screen. Also my dad kicked me out of the lounge because I kept explaining what they changed for the screen. He’s a very ‘maintain absolute silence through the watching’ type of guy. But also a ‘I’ll fall asleep during the first 5 minutes of the movie” type of guy. That’s the beauty of streaming services, I guess. And also the reason why I can recite basically the entire Lord of the Rings movie trilogy!

📚🚀📚

There ya go! As I’ve said before, I really love adaptations, whether that’s loving them or ripping them to shreds 😂 Last week was loving them, so this week has to be ripping them to shreds! As always, you are more than welcome to come and chat to me in the comments about which adaptation RUINED your favourite book! And yes, I did really want to mention Percy Jackson (just so so many things).