May 22, 2016

Book to Movie: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I think I'll always remember The Perks of Being a Wallflower as being the book I was listening to via Audible when I drove my car into a pond last fall.

However, my coworker had the movie, so she lent it to me and I hooked up the old DVD player so I could watch it while I did laundry.


Here is my original review of the book that I wrote last fall. 


In short, I liked the movie better than I liked the book. I really enjoy seeing how a producer or director can put faces to characters. In this case, it worked. It doesn't always (see: Twilight).

Some things I liked:

+They didn't focus on the journal/diary that much. It started out with letters and ended with letters, but there was no time and date stamp on the movie the way there was in the book. You could tell it took place 20-some years ago, but the setting wasn't over-the-top.
+Charlie in the movie was not how I pictured Charlie in the book. In fact, this whole conversation about the movie/book started when I sent my coworker a gif and she said that was the guy from this movie and it was good.
+I really like Dylan McDermott. He should be in every movie.
+I liked Patrick in the movie better than I liked Patrick in the book.
+I enjoy that it takes place in Pennsylvania.

Some thing I didn't like:

+Sam was kind of annoying. Nothing against Emma Watson.
+About 2/3 of the way through, it kind of lost me. Obviously this is because I knew what was going to happen. But all teen movies tend to end the same way, right?
+Charlie in the movie wasn't like the Charlie I envisioned in the book. That whole autism/ADHD diagnosis I couldn't stop thinking about; I didn't get it from the movie.

It was kind of ironic that The Armchair Librarians talked about books vs. movies this week...I'd already had this sitting by my t.v. ready to go.

What's your favorite (or least favorite!) book to movie???

4 comments:

  1. I still feel that I need to see the movie even though I really didn't like the book. I just feel like it would be better as a movie, and normally, that is NOT how I feel. Most movies don't even compare to the books, in my opinion. I will say that, for me, the Harry Potter movies really did an amazing job of bringing the books to life. There are definitely things that they changed or altered that I didn't feel were necessary, but none of the changes were things that caused me outrage like other movie versions of books I've read!

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  2. I read this around the same time as you did. Now, I need to see the movie too. Better late than never, right? It's the popular opinion to always say "the book is better than the movie", but sometimes I like the movie better too. So, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
    Just yesterday, I watched The Kite Runner. I decided it was pretty much exactly what I wanted the movie to be.

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  3. I looooved this book so much in high school that I made everyone I knew read it. I tried the movie and hated it - I prefer my memories of it being the perfect thing for me at that time in my life. I'm afraid to pick it up again in case older me hates it.

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