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sketchybooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is an interesting one, because while it's a well written book that I couldn't put down... overall, the movie was better.
The movie has its issues. It tries to tell the story in a similar way to the book and becomes a bit of a jumbled mess at times because of that, but. The character BZ is combined with another character who was pretty pointless in the book... but when combined with BZ gave that character much more depth and a more interesting relationship with Maria. In the movie, their friendship is what mattered most to me, and made the ending that much more intense. In the book, they barely knew each other, and I had trouble making any connection. Which, I'm aware, may have been the point, but I prefer the point in the movie personally.
It also helps that 1) Anthony Perkins gave an extremely arresting performance as BZ (which says something interesting about collaborative storytelling and even representation, since Perkins' life experiences definitely seem relevant) and 2) the movie only has one character use the f slur (that I remember?) and he's a terrible person, unlike the book where our protagonist says it constantly.
The author did help write the screenplay, so as a writer myself I'm curious if these changes were made more for story purposes or merely for adaptation purposes. Personally, I'm very glad for the changes, even though the book itself also has its strengths over the movie.
The movie has its issues. It tries to tell the story in a similar way to the book and becomes a bit of a jumbled mess at times because of that, but. The character BZ is combined with another character who was pretty pointless in the book... but when combined with BZ gave that character much more depth and a more interesting relationship with Maria. In the movie, their friendship is what mattered most to me, and made the ending that much more intense. In the book, they barely knew each other, and I had trouble making any connection. Which, I'm aware, may have been the point, but I prefer the point in the movie personally.
It also helps that 1) Anthony Perkins gave an extremely arresting performance as BZ (which says something interesting about collaborative storytelling and even representation, since Perkins' life experiences definitely seem relevant) and 2) the movie only has one character use the f slur (that I remember?) and he's a terrible person, unlike the book where our protagonist says it constantly.
The author did help write the screenplay, so as a writer myself I'm curious if these changes were made more for story purposes or merely for adaptation purposes. Personally, I'm very glad for the changes, even though the book itself also has its strengths over the movie.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Suicide, Homophobia, Sexism, and Misogyny
Moderate: Eating disorder
This follows a woman's experience with an abortion in the 1970's, and includes a lot of potentially triggering moments surrounding that.
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