Getting The Fault in Our Stars

The following video tells the story of my adventure to get my copy of John Green's new book The Fault in Our Stars. In the end it was totally worth it but at the time there were moments that seemed kind of hopeless.

   

But surprise surprise the story continued after that!

I posted a picture of the actual signature on tumblr, and to my ultimate surprise John Green commented on it! I was lucky enough to get a copy of the book with a Hanklerfish in it, but underneath the Hanklerfish Hank had scrawled a word so I posted the picture so I could ask other Nerdfighters what they thought. I thought it just said "Hanklerfish" but some people on tumblr thought maybe it said "Ducklerfish" or just "Anglerfish". But yes, as I was saying, John Green commented on my picture saying he thought that my copy may have been one of the first three that Hank drew in... which is so friggin' cool! I've been really excited to read this book and I expect that's what my afternoon is going to be!

Here it is in all it's glory!

REVIEW: Falling for Hamlet

I'm just going to skip how much
this cover bothers me, okay?

Hamlet is a story of betrayal, dealing with grief, politics and madness. In the play, Shakespeare is able to hit on many themes and emotions, giving actors much to work with leading to some intense performance from talented actors. 

Then there is this book. 

Falling for Hamlet takes the story of Hamlet, sloppily butchers it and stuffs the remaining corpse with teen fiction tropes. The book is told from the perspective of Ophelia and how she is so in love with Hamlet... etc... etc... Hamlet is so hot... etc etc. The usual. The core of the story, the atmosphere and the depth has been removed and sacrificed to make the story flashy and hip. Don't get me wrong, rewrites and novelizations of Shakespearian plays can work (For example, Fool by Christopher Moore) but the author needs to take care with what they are doing and how they approach it. 

In the case of this novel, it is modernized. It takes place in Denmark probably present day. Ophelia is still the daughter of Polonius, an advisor to the King. She has been friends with Hamlet and Horatio forever. She also has dated Hamlet off and on again, recently getting back together with him at the distain of Gertrude Hamlet's Mother. 

So Ophelia? Is she likeable? Meh. Is she relatable? Not in the slightest. On many occasions it is shoved in the Reader's face that Ophelia is hot. She's so hot that she doesn't have to do anything and she will look hot. She's blond, well dressed and lives the celebrity life. But she doesn't want to celebrity life, she wants to be normal. Ophelia is madly in love with Hamlet, which we are constantly reminded of. In the play, Ophelia is a side character. She is in love with Hamlet and Hamlet loves her too, but this isn't that crucial to the story line. Ophelia's purpose is to act as a foil to Hamlet's character and to be a comparison to him and his "decent into madness". In this novel Ophelia comes off as being unbelievable. She reminded me of Bella from Twilight judging her existence on how much Hamlet loves her. Which makes me wonder... Ophelia acknowledges that she is that girl, the girl who drops her friends and her life to run after a boy, does it make it worse that she knows this, or does it make it better in some way? 

Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet in the 1996 film adaptation.
More entertaining then anything....

Then there is Hamlet, as I mentioned earlier, Hamlet is "hot". When we are first introduced to him his main characteristics are that he is hot and he is a great boyfriend. All of Hamlet's story arch becomes unbelievable as his actions are forced. 

What really got to me, was how the author tried to incorporate the soliloquies into the novel. This didn't really work. The speeches lost their power after being translated into modern english. All of the eloquence lost. This novel took the plot strands of Hamlet and stripped it down to the bare minimum (the romance, Hamlet going crazy) and simplified the characters. I understand what Michelle Ray was attempting to do here, but it wasn't effective. This novel would have been much better if it wasn't a direct adaptation, instead stood on its own with different character names and different locations (pulling a Lion King if you will). 

I highly recommend you take a look at the original play.

Hungry for the Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins came out September 14, 2008  but I only got around to reading it this past summer thanks to a friend. And I fell in love. It's hard to find such a strong well rounded character in the teen section who you can just feel for.

With so many different incarnations of Twilight focused on the paranormal romances, The Hunger Games takes a step back from the idea that all books need to have a romantic plot as the center of attention and instead gives us something... well violent.

So now that the well known stuff is out of the way.... It didn't take too long for the book to be green lit as a movie and it was met to mixed thoughts. Some people were really excited for the film, while others were worried that the movie would get a Twilight makeover and lose it's soul to teen angst. Harry Potter managed to have some decent films, or was that because by the time movie five was out it already had it's foundations firmly ground into the floor before the Twilight infused level of angst hit it's highest. Who knows?

So The Hunger Games trailer.

I have chills. And man does it feel awesome.

I had my doubts about the movie, but from what they've shown in the trailer they managed to capture the feelings that I felt when I first read the book. The fact that they don't show any part of the Games makes complete sense, that will be the show case of the movie, and what the film will be remembered for. The trailer plays into the excitement and leaves us on a wonderful cliff hanger.

I share the fear that the Games might not live up to the bloody gory, violent horrible description given to them in the books and that the details may be glazed over. This is after all supposed to be a kid's book right? Well you could make the argument that nothing that you can put on screen can defeat what your imagination can create (I'm thinking The Blair Witch Project) or you could say that from what we are exposed to on television on a regular basis we have become desensitized. Both points have been argued to death.

I get behind The Hunger Games because I think it's about time that we have another strong protagonist for YA Lit. Harry Potter has left big shoes behind and I think Katniss is able to fill them.

I'll be there opening night ready to pack my mind (hopefully) with nightmare inducing images. Where will you be?