Let’s talk about Twilight

Yes I know, it’s been 10 years since Twilight came out, it might be a bit late to be posting about it. But I just re-read the books, and now I have some things I want to say. So here goes.

I read Twilight when I was 13 years old, one year after it was published. The movie came out in 2008, three years after the book was published. During those two years, it felt like I had the book to myself. I loved it when I first read it – what 13-year-old wouldn’t? But when I tried to tell people how good it was, they looked at me like I was mad. I remember standing in front of my grade 8 class, doing a book review oral on Twilight. I had found it in the library and was the third person to ever take it out, even though it had been on the shelf for a year. I tried to tell my class that the vampire wasn’t the bad guy, that he didn’t drink blood or kill people. He could go out during the day and didn’t sleep in a coffin, but it was all a foreign concept back then – the idea of a vampire being good, or sexy. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my point across. So I gave up, I stopped talking about it, bought myself a copy (which is a super old hardcover that has a different cover from the red apple we’re all used to), which still sits on my bookshelf today, just a tad bit tatty.

Sadly I’m not home, otherwise I would have put a pic of my copy, but for now this will have to do. Pic sourced from here.

Better than Lord of the Rings

I’m about to make a bold statement.

Last year, in my English 3 class, we had an elective called British Modern Fantasy, and in it we studied The Lord of the Rings saga (it’s not a trilogy). I loved it of course; it is pretty difficult not to love Tolkien. However, there is a certain similar set of books which I personally think are better than The Lord of the Rings.

The books I’m talking about are the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. The first book is called Eragon  and I read it for the first time when I was about 12-years-old. The series grew to be extremely popular among young adults as the second (Eldest) and third (Brisingr) books were released. There was a three year wait between each book, which meant that by the time the final book (Inheritance) was released I was almost 18, and I have to say that I was in no way patient in each of those three year gaps.

I had such conviction during the Christmas holidays that I was going to sit down and read every book on my list that I had been wanting to read but had not gotten around to. This failed miserably. I spotted Eragon on my bookshelf one day towards the end of the holiday and I couldn’t restrain myself from plucking it off the shelf and starting to read it. Before I knew it, I was just as engrossed in the series as I had been back in high school. I sat and read them at every spare moment. I sped through them at a pace that alarmed even me, especially since the entire cycle consists of about 2 779 pages. I realised with only 4 days to go in my holiday that I still had the whole of Inheritance to read. I knew that I couldn’t take it back to Rhodes with me because 860 pages was a few too many to fit into my carryon bag. Let’s just say I may not have spent as much time with my family as I should have in those last few days. (I did manage to finish it, in case you were wondering).

Live Tweeting The Book Thief

Last night I decided to watch the movie of The Book Thief. The movie came out at the end of last year, based on the book by author Markus Zusak. The book is one of my all time favourites; it is written beautifully and the story line is captivating from beginning to end. To be honest, it is an absolutely heart-breaking book and I remember crying heavily towards the end. The movie manages to portray the tragic events in a tasteful and emotional way, but as I have said before, the book is always better than the movie.

I live tweeted throughout the movie, at first I intended to make constant comparisons, but in the end I mostly tweeted about the movie. I really enjoyed it and had very few comparisons to make.

My tweets can be found here. Enjoy!

The (A)Maze(ing) Runner

I have noticed recently that there is a huge uproar about an upcoming movie, which is based on a book called The Maze Runner by James Dashner. I’m a big fan of Dylan O’Brien, the actor playing the main character, which meant that I would have no choice but to see the movie, which further meant that I had to read the book before doing so.

I feel that watching the movie before reading the book is cheating; it ruins the book because it gives you preconceived ideas of what things look like instead of letting your imagination do the work. Even just knowing who is playing the main characters in the movie affected the way that I read the book, which is always a downer for me. I prefer watching a movie when I have read the book beforehand – it gives me a strange sense of power, like I’m psychic because I know what is about to happen. It also always causes a lot of unexpected emotions; I tend to get a bit too upset if the movie deviates in any way from the book.

This weekend I didn’t have too many plans, so I took a break from my (thriving) social life and sat down to read the first book of the series. The Maze Runner was easy to get into right from the first page. It dumps you into the glade along with Thomas and gives you no more information than he himself knows, which is literally just his name. This kind of book both appeals to me and frustrates me. I love the intrigue of not knowing what is happening or why it is happening, but at the same time I am desperate for answers. Who put Thomas in the Glade? Why can’t he remember anything? Why are there no girls? It was question on top of question from the beginning to the end. However, it was also packed with excitement and adventure. There was a constant sense of danger and confusion as Thomas managed to end up in the middle of every perilous situation. It becomes clear pretty quickly that Thomas and Theresa, the girl who appears in the Glade soon after him (answering one of my questions, and then adding about a million more), are catalysts in the big picture and that they hold the key to escaping from the huge stone Maze that is holding them all prisoner.