Divergent Movie Review

Last Friday, the film adaptation of the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth was released in cinemas in the states. It was directed by Neil Burger, who is also known for The Illusionist and Limitless.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the average critic rating is at 40% who thought it was good. I’m actually rather surprised at how low that rating is, though I can’t say that I generally trust the website for if films are good or not.

In my opinion, coming from the perspective of the book, this movie is one of the best adaptations of a book to date. Granted, I haven’t read the book in over a year, but it was pretty damn good. It follows the plot shockingly close (we all remember the Percy Jackson flop), which I haven’t seen since Harry Potter.

I’m not going to lie, there were some changes from the book. It wasn’t a carbon copy. The main difference from what I could tell was that Uriah, Marlene, and Zeke were all cut out from the film. I know that the fandom was in an uproar when this was found out, and I’m not exactly trying to defend the movie here, but speaking from personal experience I found it was difficult to keep track of the characters in the book. It would be just as difficult if not even more so to keep them straight in a movie. So in that sense, I understand the change. There is also the fact that the ending was tweaked slightly to include the fight scene and some of Tris’s fear landscapes were absent. Also, small detail, but the Erudite weren’t wearing glasses. I honestly don’t know why I remember that.

The biggest problem I had with this movie was the use of green screens. They were used multiple times in the movie and those scenes felt a little too 2005ish for my tastes (and does anyone else remember Alex Rider?).

There was a lot of hype about the lead actors – and by hype, I mean hate. Shailene Woodley and Theo James, playing Tris Prior and Four respectively, had a lot of the fandom up in an angry uproar. Shailene didn’t look “Tris” enough for the part. Theo wasn’t hot. And granted, from the stills, that seemed to be the case. But when I actually saw them in action, I was in for a shock. Their acting was perfectly spot on for the characters. Tris was timid with that adventurousness and curiosity about her. Four started off cruel and cold, only to warm up to Tris. It really was a good job on their part, and on the part of the casting crew (Venus Kanani and Mary Vernieu).

Coming from my friend, who hadn’t read the books, the movie held good entertainment value. I obviously couldn’t weigh in on this because I was so focused on similar it was to the novel. In her view, though, the film was on the long side and dragged on in places. The two hours passed without me noticing, though without already knowing the plot beforehand, I would have probably gotten a bit bored.

Overall, I would give this movie a 5 out of 5. Granted, there were imperfections, but there literally isn’t a single movie without them. I have not had this much pride in a film adaptation ever in my life. From the casting to the accuracy to the book, it was obvious that the screenplay writers and the director had actually read the book (something that is very questionable in other movies). So kudos to this movie for being one of the best of its kind (dare I say it was even better at accuracy and entertainment than Catching Fire).

NEW PAPER TOWNS MOVIE

If you haven't heard of John Green by now, you've probably been living in a hole that has no wifi. The acclaimed author of The Fault in Our Stars (which has a film coming out the 6th of June - review of the book here) just announced on Twitter that his 2008 novel Paper Towns will be made into a movie!

Paper Towns has to be my favourite book by John Green. You can read a review of it here. The film will be starring Nat Wolff as Quentin Jacobsen and John Green will, in fact, be the Executive Producer.

The Mortality Doctrine: The Rule of Thoughts Cover Reveal

If you've been following my blog from the beginning, then you should know that one of my favourite books is The Eye of Minds by James Dashner (also know for the Maze Runner, which currently is being made into a film. Trailer here). The second book in The Mortality Doctrine finally has a cover!

I do rather like this cover. It doesn't give away too much about what may or may not happen in this book, but it is rather interesting. The contrast between the warm and cool colours do well to juxtapose the difference between the digital world and the real one (though in this series, the difference between the two is a blurred line). The art itself is brilliant, credit going to Stephanie Moss (At least, I think so. She did the cover for the first book). I can't wait until this book is released!

What's your opinion on the cover? What are you looking forward to most in this book?

THE MAZE RUNNER TRAILER

Finally, after the movie being pushed back months, we have gotten our trailer!

The Maze Runner by James Dashner is the first book in self-titled trilogy. I highly recommend all you cranks to go read it as soon as possible. From what I can tell from this trailer, the movie is going to be highly accurate to the book - an absolute first for a YA book-to-film adaptation in a long while (not naming any names but, erm, *cough* Percy Jackson *cough*). Not to mention the insanely hot Dylan O'Brian, who plays as Stiles in the MTV show Teen Wolf, has the lead role of Thomas. I honestly cannot wait for this film to come out!

The Maze Runner will be released in cinemas in the US on 19th September.

Five New Percy Jackson Covers!

If you remember from Monday, I posted about how the Percy Jackson and the Olympian's books are getting a whole new look. If you want to go check out that post, it is here.

So, without further ado, here are the new covers!

As you can see, when the books are put together both cover-to-cover and spine-to-spine, they form these pictures that span across all of the books. Quite a clever idea (and a good marketing technique, since I'm seriously considering buying another set of these books - In my defence, my copy of The Lightning Thief is starting to quite literally fall apart). 

These covers to bear similarities to their original counterparts, though they are a bit more sketchy in style and much more detailed. And they're no longer monochromatic. It may be just me, but the art style reminds me vaguely of the original UK covers for these books, at least colour wise. No news on when these new covers will be up for sale.

So what do you think of these new covers?

After the Fear Review

I had After the Fear waiting, unread, on my tablet for the past few months. Only recently, when I was going through my emails did I remember it and decided why not read it? I haven’t anything better to do. And let me tell you – that was one of the best decisions of my life.

After the Fear by Rosanne River’s takes place in a dystopian society in which England has to pay of the “debt”, which they do by holding these events called demonstrations. If someone breaks the law, they get thrown into a demonstration. This book follows the perspective of a younger heroin named Sola. It sounds quite like the Hunger Games when you talk about it, but trust me. It’s better.

First of all, there is a well-written, strong female protagonist in this novel. I’ve found it difficult to find books that realistically portray a female lead, and River’s got it perfect in one. Sola faces not just issues that exist only in this fictional world, but also ones that regular teenage girls face, such as drama. But that drama doesn’t take over the book and there’s still plenty of action to go around.

I see the comparison to the Hunger Games, but the two books are not the same. There is fighting in an arena, but in After the Fear it’s more Roman gladiator style verses attempting to live in a strange yet controlled environment. The plots are also entirely different. This book is much less of a story leading up to a rebellion and war and more about the main character dealing with things as they’re thrown at her. She does find out about what the government is doing, but for once, there’s a main character who actually thinks better about striking back at full force.

The setting in this novel is fairly creative. It took England and twisted it around. Cities stayed cities, but the names were changed and the style of cities did too. No one could leave or enter them and, while some of that is standard practice in dystopian novels, the way River’s went about it and the setting she used as the base was fairly interesting.

There is also a political base to this novel as well. It talks about debt and, similar in this sense to Anthony Horowitz’s Oblivion, takes an issue from today and escalates it to how it might be in the long run if nothing is done. It was a creative approach and the plot twist in the novel really ties it in to modern day.

Overall, I give After the Fear a five out of five. I can’t find much fault with the book and I can see myself coming back to this book multiple times to reread. It easily made my top five favourites of all time, and it’s fairly difficult for a book to place there. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a bit of action that also satisfies their dystopian society needs. I would also recommend it to any Hunger Games fan. The romance in this novel is fairly minimal as well, so while there is some, it is not sickeningly so. The only warning I have about this novel is that there is a lot of killing, and that could possibly make someone uncomfortable or be a bit of a trigger warning. But overall, this book is brilliant and I highly recommend it.

New Percy Jackson Covers? Lightning Thief reveal

It was announced about a week ago on the Percy Jackson facebook page that the series would be getting a new look (which I hope doesn't affect the cover of Blood of Olympus because if that cover doesn't match the rest...). The new covers are planned to be released all this week, starting today with The Lightning Thief. According to the press release "[Fans will] find out that when these new paperback book are lined up side by side by side, they will reveal one amazing panoramic mural."

These covers are all going to be done by the same artist who has been doing the covers of the US editions since the very beginning: John Rocco (I went off about him in my House of Hades review, which you can read here).

Now, the moment you have all been waiting for. Drum roll please....

Opinions? Leave them in the comments!