The BOOK VS. MOVIE Debate

Hello Hapi People!

I am all kinds of messed up this morning. I did not sleep well and was awoken early this morning by my mother and sister for the prospect of beignets. I did not have beignets this morning. However, I did have a strange dream about a funeral that I only vaguely remember. (Anyone else have a hard time remembering their dreams? Needless to say I went back to sleep until I was more coherent. The reason I was up all night was a combination of being wide awake and my dog being hyper. As a result of my lack of sleep, I ventured onto the interwebs and came across a very cool YouTube Channel. The channel is called "booksandquills" and it's a one-woman-show by Sanne (a Dutch name I believe). She works at a publishing company in London and is an avid reader. Her channel, as you can probably guess, is all about books. Sanne makes reading seem cool again and has an eclectic taste in books.  I got lost in the vortex of her numerous videos about books she has read of all different genres, from Shakespeare to graphic novels. There was one video in particular that led to one of my insomniac activities last night.

Sanne reviews books on her channel and she apparently did a Shakespeare reading challenge last summer - during which she tried to read Shakespeare's plays. Her particular review of "Twelfth Night"; she explained that she, an English major in college, had some difficulty reading the play. She said that she would read a paragraph and only get the gist of what was happening.  Sanne explained that she found a DVD of the play being acted out and seeing the action helped her better understand the play. She recommended in her Twelfth Night and some other videos that if you don't understand a book to watch the movie first or in bits as you read the book. I thought this was very good advice for readers, especially those in school reading the classics.

Here is the video if you want to check it out.

I recently read... well listened to the audiobook, of "Fault in Our Stars" and I loved it. However, I could not bring myself to watch the movie, even before I read the book. I just thought it would be too sad and as time went on the hype of the movie and book faded a little. However, after watching Sanne's video I became intrigued because she gave me a new perspective on the "Book vs. Movie Debate" - a.k.a. which is better and do movies ruin books? So, I found the movie last night and watched it. I know I am behind the times, but I just did not want to read or watch something simply because everyone else watched and read. I must admit, I wished I had watched the movie first. The movie was great, don't get me wrong - I just wanted to test Sanne's unintentional theory. I had an understanding of the book and the movie did not enlighten me in any major way. The movie did bring the characters to life, however, there wasn't as much inner dialogue as was in the book. Of course, if a character talked over every bit of their action in a movie, it would be distracting to the viewer. I did get a better understanding of the emotions of the characters, but that was about it.

With all this said, I am curious about your opinions on the theory of "Books vs. Movies". I personally believe you should watch the movie first if you know you will be able to understand the plot and language of the movie. Books tend to delve deeper into the thoughts of the characters and have more attention to detail. I would love to know your opinions and experiences with "Books vs. Movies" and what order you think is best. Should you read first, watch the movie, do you like to read, or just skip the movie altogether? Let me know in the comments here or on social media!


Stay Hapi,
Amy