Lydia's bookshelf: read

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Book Review of Room

     Room was one of tmy favorite books I have read, because it was very engaging and had a great plot that made it hard for me to put it down. Room started off with Jack and Ma- Jack is Ma's 5 year old son, who was born because Ma had been abducted and raped by Old Nick. Everyday, Jack and Ma wake up and proceed to their everyday activities. These include eating breakfast, phys ed, watching tv, eating lunch, watching tv again, then concluding with a bath and dinner. One day, Ma confesses to Jack that "Outside" is actually real, and that encourages both of them- Ma to go back Outside and reunite with her family, and Jack to finally go Outside- to leave Room. They both create a plan where Jack pretends to get sick and old Nick does nothing to help or cure Jack's sickness. Jack then dies, and gets rolled up in Rug. When Old Nick comes back in Room, he believes that Jack is dead. The next part of their plan is to have Jack jump out of the truck when Old Nick drives somewhere to bury him. He is to then scream and tell everyone and anyone what is happening. To know what happens next, you must read the book to find out. I definitely rate this a book a 5/5, because of the amazing story/plot and the writing style Emma Donoghue chooses to use.

     The writing style she chooses to use is in the perspective of Jack, who again is 5 years old. This makes some parts of the book hard to read and understand, but I like that it's a challenge to read once in a while. I reccommend this book to anyone who wants to read something different but yet a great read. In my opinion, anyone who enjoys reading realistic fiction novels will enjoy this novel, which puts a twist on the average realistic fiction novel you might come across.


Room Summary:
http://www.shmoop.com/room-emma-donoghue/summary.html
YouTube Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmzm44OCPIw

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Post 4: Adapting your Book 2

One essential scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's is the scene where Holly gets out of the shower, and her friends are talking about a party. This is a scene where her friends' true feelings about her come out. Fred talks about how Holly is self-centered and selfish, but she doesn't see that. This also gives Holly a chance to see their true colors. If this was made into a movie, I would not want to see this scene being left out, because it would challenge the actors. In the book, there are many personality traits that the actors/actresses would have to express.

Another scene that should be kept is when Holly eats her breakfast outside of Tiffany's-hence the title. Usually, she walks a short distance from her apartment to Tiffany's (the jewelry shop), and eats her breakfast outside the shop. This allows the reader to share thoughts with Holly, because it gives her a relaxing place to collect her thoughts and blissfully relax before she starts her day.

The last part of the book the film directors should decide to keep in the movie is the scene where Holly gets the opportunity to visit the convict for 100 dollars a week. This would encourage her to talk to someone about her feelings and her life, because-mentioned in the first example-, she has a hard time trusting her friends. This allows her to share her thoughts and frustrations with a convict in jail, who will not judge her and also share his/her feelings back to her.

One scene I would not keep in the movie are just generally the scenes in the book where nothing is going on, and the author describes what Holly is doing or what she's thinking, or just anything that doesn't have to do with the rest of the story. There are many scenes in the book that are like this, and I don't understand why the author chose to use them. I know that every book must have some of these to act as fillers, but the author used way too many in this book and would make the viewers of the movie bored and uninterested as well.

A character that I would take out of the movie is Holly's acquaintance, who lives upstairs in her apartment complex. She would come down late at night and vent to Holly about her drunk husband, and would talk to Holly about her writings. This is another example of how the author didn't make the best choices of how to engage the reader, because I would always get bored while reading the parts when this character would show up, and nothing they talked about would spark my interest.