My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult; Thud! - Terry Pratchett
So, just over half a year ago, I saw the movie of MSK at the behest of, and with, one of my friends. It was okay, except I ended up hating the mother and thought the end was justifiable, even though it’s pretty much the complete opposite of what it is in the book.
The book itself… I could’ve done without the first half. It was rather slow and the movie pretty much followed the book exactly except there is more stuff from the minor/secondary characters in the book. Oh and a completely new character who got chopped from the movie in favour of giving the aunt a more prominent role.
So of course I stalled once I got about halfway through and… paused for a while and then skimmed ahead and then… the second half is, well, not exactly action-packed, but definitely more interesting than the first.
Of course, all my favourite bit are in the second half. For example, the scene where Jesse admits to donating platelets. He was an interesting character in the movie, and I’d wished there was more of him. There is a little bit more in the book, but I still wish there was more of him. (And I’m not quite sure if I want to read fanfiction for this book, as book fandoms are generally less brilliant than the book.)
Brian and Jesse’s CONFRONTATION SCENE. Rather awesome. But again, I kind of wish there was a bit more interaction between the other members of the family. (The quotes at the beginning of the chapters are cool, as they’re all generally fire-related.)
Then there’s Sara in court, especially when she’s interviewing Brian (it’s cute), but in general when she’s talking about how she may favour one child, but isn’t the court case asking her to do the same to the other. It’s because of this that the mother is much more tolerable in the book than she is in the movie. Yay!
Then there is Julia and Campbell getting together, FINALLY. Julia being the character chopped in the movie. She’s the guardian ad litem, which is explained better in the book than I could ever hope to, but she’s a kind of lawyer who evaluates situations with the eye of a social worker. Or something. Anyway, she and Campbell, the lawyer, have a history and thus all their interactions are filled with UST but then they get over it and end up together.
Now, the end… is weird. On one hand I don’t like it at all, on the other it fits. On one foot it’s so bizarrely deus ex machina like, on the other it shows exactly how random life is.
I really can’t make up my mind about it. It perfectly illustrates that life is random and weird, not everyone gets a happy ending and it’s good from that, and a literary point of view, but… I keep thinking about that author’s mantra whenever someone brings up some strange happenstance in real life - “Real Life doesn’t have to make sense, a book has to”, and so it just DOESN’T make sense from a literary trope point of view. Everyone is supposed to get their ending, whether happy or sad, but Anna has hers stolen away.
Although the epilogue is the most perfect example of how to do one properly; letting people know what has happened to the characters since the end of the story, but still leaving plenty of wiggle room for ‘whatever happened too…’. This is good, in my opinion.
After about two and a half years sitting on the coffee table, I finally finished Thud!.
I seem to have this problem with Discworld books - I start them and get to halfway and then… just leave them for a week, a couple of years. Okay, so I do the week thing with other books as well. Case in point MSK above and Inda. (I swear I’m finishing The Fox Rhi, even if I am still at seventh of the way through.) The trouble is that I skim ahead and then get bored because I’ve read all this stuff before.
So, anyway, a sufficient amount of time had passed since I’d skimmed ahead that I wasn’t bored with Thud!. (Also, I wanted to catwax.) I finished it in an evening, even while reading aloud quotes to my dad. Which is a good thing, otherwise I’d have far more bookmarks of interest than I do, which only consists of seven this kind around.
Angua threatening one of the other officers with stiletto heels. And then when she says she’s not into bondage.
Oh god, the part where they experiment with the carriage and Vimes sees the Horse is really rather deliciously written.
I so obviously love the cavern scenes more than anything in the middle of the book. As demonstrated by the next bunch of sentences which are so tenuously connected that I hesitate to call it a paragraph.
As gorgeous as the entire Koom cavern sequence is, especially with all the dwarves and trolls laying side by side, I do like the brief interlude about how it’s probably still illegal to feed prisoners Dwarf Bread.
And I want to learn how to speak fluent Chicken.
I also like the amended version of The Things Tak Wrote. Interruptions in narratives are funny. Especially when done right.
The scene in the chamber with the game of Thud and Little Sam with his fetching woolly hat with a bobble is adorable. Entirely because of the bobbly hat.
In general, I am very biased towards Terry Pratchett, so I can’t say you should read Thud! though the beginning and the end (once you get over the hump of a middle) is definitely worth it. And well, it’s only gently satirical, but yay for providing thought into centuries long conflict between two opposing cultures?
Now… to finish Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox, The Fox, Unseen Academicals, I Shall Wear Midnight and Second Glance. Not in that order, but those are all the ones that I’ve started that I have to hand. Two of which are being lent to me.
The book itself… I could’ve done without the first half. It was rather slow and the movie pretty much followed the book exactly except there is more stuff from the minor/secondary characters in the book. Oh and a completely new character who got chopped from the movie in favour of giving the aunt a more prominent role.
So of course I stalled once I got about halfway through and… paused for a while and then skimmed ahead and then… the second half is, well, not exactly action-packed, but definitely more interesting than the first.
Of course, all my favourite bit are in the second half. For example, the scene where Jesse admits to donating platelets. He was an interesting character in the movie, and I’d wished there was more of him. There is a little bit more in the book, but I still wish there was more of him. (And I’m not quite sure if I want to read fanfiction for this book, as book fandoms are generally less brilliant than the book.)
Brian and Jesse’s CONFRONTATION SCENE. Rather awesome. But again, I kind of wish there was a bit more interaction between the other members of the family. (The quotes at the beginning of the chapters are cool, as they’re all generally fire-related.)
Then there’s Sara in court, especially when she’s interviewing Brian (it’s cute), but in general when she’s talking about how she may favour one child, but isn’t the court case asking her to do the same to the other. It’s because of this that the mother is much more tolerable in the book than she is in the movie. Yay!
Then there is Julia and Campbell getting together, FINALLY. Julia being the character chopped in the movie. She’s the guardian ad litem, which is explained better in the book than I could ever hope to, but she’s a kind of lawyer who evaluates situations with the eye of a social worker. Or something. Anyway, she and Campbell, the lawyer, have a history and thus all their interactions are filled with UST but then they get over it and end up together.
Now, the end… is weird. On one hand I don’t like it at all, on the other it fits. On one foot it’s so bizarrely deus ex machina like, on the other it shows exactly how random life is.
I really can’t make up my mind about it. It perfectly illustrates that life is random and weird, not everyone gets a happy ending and it’s good from that, and a literary point of view, but… I keep thinking about that author’s mantra whenever someone brings up some strange happenstance in real life - “Real Life doesn’t have to make sense, a book has to”, and so it just DOESN’T make sense from a literary trope point of view. Everyone is supposed to get their ending, whether happy or sad, but Anna has hers stolen away.
Although the epilogue is the most perfect example of how to do one properly; letting people know what has happened to the characters since the end of the story, but still leaving plenty of wiggle room for ‘whatever happened too…’. This is good, in my opinion.
After about two and a half years sitting on the coffee table, I finally finished Thud!.
I seem to have this problem with Discworld books - I start them and get to halfway and then… just leave them for a week, a couple of years. Okay, so I do the week thing with other books as well. Case in point MSK above and Inda. (I swear I’m finishing The Fox Rhi, even if I am still at seventh of the way through.) The trouble is that I skim ahead and then get bored because I’ve read all this stuff before.
So, anyway, a sufficient amount of time had passed since I’d skimmed ahead that I wasn’t bored with Thud!. (Also, I wanted to catwax.) I finished it in an evening, even while reading aloud quotes to my dad. Which is a good thing, otherwise I’d have far more bookmarks of interest than I do, which only consists of seven this kind around.
Angua threatening one of the other officers with stiletto heels. And then when she says she’s not into bondage.
Oh god, the part where they experiment with the carriage and Vimes sees the Horse is really rather deliciously written.
I so obviously love the cavern scenes more than anything in the middle of the book. As demonstrated by the next bunch of sentences which are so tenuously connected that I hesitate to call it a paragraph.
As gorgeous as the entire Koom cavern sequence is, especially with all the dwarves and trolls laying side by side, I do like the brief interlude about how it’s probably still illegal to feed prisoners Dwarf Bread.
And I want to learn how to speak fluent Chicken.
I also like the amended version of The Things Tak Wrote. Interruptions in narratives are funny. Especially when done right.
The scene in the chamber with the game of Thud and Little Sam with his fetching woolly hat with a bobble is adorable. Entirely because of the bobbly hat.
In general, I am very biased towards Terry Pratchett, so I can’t say you should read Thud! though the beginning and the end (once you get over the hump of a middle) is definitely worth it. And well, it’s only gently satirical, but yay for providing thought into centuries long conflict between two opposing cultures?
Now… to finish Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox, The Fox, Unseen Academicals, I Shall Wear Midnight and Second Glance. Not in that order, but those are all the ones that I’ve started that I have to hand. Two of which are being lent to me.