This blog is really more of a personal rant or digression. I have encountered this literary problem before, but I have never had an outlet on which to complain about this stigmatized issue. And there can be no solution. So I figured that while I am writing a blog about books, I can share my irreparable discontent with the world!
Recently I’ve found that the film industry has been grasping for ideas for new and exciting movies, and a lot of popular films have been inspired by popular books. Some of these movies are great (The Hunger Games movies haven’t disappointed me or my mother yet), while others have kind of missed the mark (yes, I’m talking about you, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Julie Taymor’s version of The Tempest). I’m not going to complain about these book-to-film movies though. What has been annoying me lately is the fact that I seem to be getting into books right before they are made into films and my interest in the books makes it seem as if I am jumping on the movie bandwagon. Clearly this is a personal, neurotic issue, but I wanted to write about it for anyone that might be encountering this same problem. So I’m not writing this to expunge my records of reading books right before the movie adaptation show up in theaters, this is for you readers to feel better about yourselves and know that you are not alone.
Last week, as I was browsing Amazon, I came across The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, a book that Amazon recommended for me. My friends told me to read it years ago, and I always said I would get around to it. I had no idea what it was about, but it was only $4 dollars for my Kindle and it had amazing reviews on Amazon, so I figured “why not?”. I finished the Song of Ice and Fire book I was reading (after only two months!!) and decided that this would be an easy read to fall asleep to. I have written about the emotional torture that George R. R. Martin has put me through over the past few years, and I assumed that this Young Adult novel couldn’t possibly create the same amount of emotional destruction to which I have become accustomed. Imagine my surprise when I started reading and the first page paints the picture of young Hazel Grace, a sixteen-year-old girl with terminal cancer. That was definitely not what I was expecting. I was also not expecting her sarcastic, witty personality that permeates through the novel. This book, which took me two days to read, put me on an emotional rollercoaster, and had me both laughing out loud and hysterically crying.
I woke up this morning and was checking my Twitter feed, which is an integral part of my morning routine. As I scrolled through the retweets and complaints from people about having to go to work or school, I was startled to see a news story about a controversial movie poster for the upcoming film, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. I couldn’t believe it. I like to think of myself as a movie buff and I am usually pretty aware of the films that are coming out in the next year (especially literary-inspired books), but this movie flew completely under my radar. I told people at work that I had read this book last week, and now they are going to think that I was just reading this book because it was being made into a movie. The embarrassment! To be honest, sometimes I do read books when I hear they are going to be made into movies (either to refresh my memory so I can compare the film adaptation to the original book or to read what all the hype is about), but this was not one of those instances. Therefore, I believe that henceforth all film producers who are going to make a film based on a book must inform me personally so that I can avoid this issue. Sound good? Great, thanks.
-There’s Always Money in the Beaunana Stand