Film Vs Book: Paper Towns and Me, Earl and the Dying Girl

I wanted to do this post because these two films based upon two great young adult books came out this summer. I owned both of these books but the films coming out gave me the impetus to read the books. I absolutely flew through both of them and enjoyed them both very much (as you'll have seen from my review of both!). I wanted to post about the films and the books because I enjoyed both elements of the way the story is told. This post does contain some spoilers so if you have no idea what either of these books is about, I suggest you pick them both up now, read them and then check back at this post. 

Paper towns. I loved the book because it was a bit of a mystery and was very fast paced. The movie has this same fast-paced element to it but the mystery element seems hyped up a little more, it is more, 'this is scary looking for Margo' than 'I wonder why Margo has us doing all of this stuff?'. One of the things I was most looking forward to seeing in the film, aside from the bit with the peeing in the car, was when Q and Margo break into Seaworld. There are two things missing from Margo's list in the film though and that was one of them (the book has 11 items, the film 9 items). I was a bit disappointed by this, as was my cinema companion and fellow John Green fan. I did love seeing the road trip brought to life in the film though and Margo looked exactly as she appeared in my head-yey!

Me Earl and the Dying Girl. I loved the film of this book as well but I have to say, the film didn't make me laugh as much as the book-surprising! There were certainly some laugh-out-loud moments in the film as there was in the book but I think possibly the images i conjured up in my head were just a little sillier and way out there. I really liked the way the scripted scenes that were in the book were done in the film. The books is part prose and part script and to get this effect over in the film, part of it is live action and some bits are animated with clay models or just general stop motions animation. The thing I also really liked about the film  was that you got to see snippets of the films that Earl and Greg made-they were fabulous. I like the fact that the books is mainly written in the second person and the film also achieves that by talking directly to us, the audience.

So as you can see, I liked both books and both films, not a very controversial post really, however I wanted to make clear that there are definitely difference between both films and their respective books. If you read and watched both of these this summer, I'm sure you'll agree with me that a great time was to be had by all!

Review: Paper Towns by John Green

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...

Review: I think this may be my favourite John Green novel and I am regretting leaving this until so late to read. Sweeping statement I know but I so enjoyed this novel. I felt that the characters were so well developed, I felt a real affinity with them and I can wait to some how they come across on the big screen when I se the film. The storyline of this novel was also seriously gripping,in found myself turning and turning this pages and read it in just two sittings. There is a certain element of mystery about it in some parts but this is most definitely a coming of age novel and something that you will feel yourself as you read John Green's beautiful words! 

I like the fact that this novel was written from Q's point of view because I really could identify with Q as a character. Yes, I did find myself judging him for his kind of obsessive nature when it came to Margo and the parallel's between his search for Margo and the novel Moby Dick that he is reading in class are really quite accurate but I respected the fact that a he had always been a good student and wanted to remain that way but he was torn between staying that 'ideal student' and following his heart/his friends. I thought the characters of Ben and Radar were seriously funny and I really enjoyed reading about them as much as I did Q! Margo, on the other hand, I wasn't so taken with. I felt she was a little attention seeking almost at the same time as she was trying not to be attention seeking but I thought her character worked really well as the yang to Q's ying! 

I really liked the fact that this novel was set in Orlando becaus I could picture some of the areas they were talking about and visiting and there have been so many movies that are set in 'upstate New York' that I could picture there too so I really liked the setting of this book. And of course, being written by John Green, there is some beautiful description, no matter where the setting or what the situation the character are in. As far as young adult books go, this can be enjoyed on so many levels that I am sure, no matter what the audience, any reader will be able to get something from this young or more mature. It is definitely a coming of age novel, it is funny and there are some seriously good life observations contained with tin it's pages. I so enjoyed this reading experience and now I can't wait to see the film and see it do justice to this great novel.