What would you like to see?

Featured imageCassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series has already been made into a movie.  You may have forgotten it existed since it came out and was gone just as quickly in 2013.  I’ll admit, I have a copy of it, given to me by a friend and I still haven’t seen it.  From what I hear it wasn’t good.  Well, it looks like Clary, Jace, Simon, Isabelle and Magnus will have another chance to live off the page but this time on TV.   ABC Family has ordered the series Shadowhunters to premiere sometime next year.  Honestly, I think it will be better TV show then movie.  It has so many subplots and characters, that a more serialized form would be a better fit to get all of it in.  And for me at least, the casting is more in line with how the characters are in my head then the movie.  Though, that is not the case for everyone.  Some fans have express their “concerns” over the fact that some of the actors are not the ethnicity as the characters in the book.  For instance, the actress cast as Isabelle, Emeraude Toubia, is hispanic.  I don’t see this as a problem because a) She’s beautiful, tall with long dark hair like Isabelle and b) we are never really given her nationality beyond the fact she is a Shadowhunter because in the shadowhunter world, that comes first, nationality comes a distant second.  Props to the producers and ABC Family for casting based on who they thought was the best fit for the role.  I hope it’s good.  I do have some reservations about this series but I really did enjoy reading them as a whole and I will see the movie eventually.  It got me thinking though.  What other book that has already been made into a movie would I like to see made into a TV Show?  I have two on the top of my head.

First, hands down, Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  The first two books were made into a movies and well they were bad.  OK, they were fine but anyone who read the book, knew they were lacking.  Percy, Annabeth and Grover were too old and the prophecy that was the center of the whole series was left out!  It was just a mess.  With 10 books, if you include the Heroes of Olympus there are plenty of material to work with for several seasons.

Second, Harry Potter may seem like a strange one because the movies were really good.  As far as adaptations go, they were faithful to the source material but also have their own identity but think of all that was left out?  The beauty of TV shows is that you more time to tell the story depending on how many episodes.  Movies are about 2 to 2 1/2 hours long.  Shows are 30 minutes to an hour long from anywhere to 12 episodes to 24.  That’s a lot more time!  Maybe then we would get to see more of Dobby and the house elves.  More of Neville’s back story and well more of the other characters in general.  Just think of the possibilities!

Those are two I can think of right now?  What other movies based on books would you like to see go the TV route?  Sound off in the comments below.

What I’m Listening to: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Beth and I are in the same book club.  The reader on this audio book is knocking it out of the park.  Each girl has her own voice and it is wonderful!  I checked this out from my public library.  Shout out to the Buffalo and Erie County Public Libraries!

Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Featured imageIn the second review of a retelling of Beauty and the Beast (Cruel Beautywhich I reviewed this week is another retelling) the beast is a Faerie. It’s a first book of a new series but I felt like I’ve read books one and two in this one.  I read this book before I read Sarah J. Maas’ other series, Throne of Glass and I guess it’s for the best.  I think I would have been more disappointed in this if I was more familiar with her work because I loved Throne of Glass books.  This I just liked.

Feyre is 19 years old and even though she is the youngest, she is the one taking care of her family.  Their family’s fortune is gone and her father and her two oldest sisters live in a small cottage. One day, while hunting, Feyre comes across a deer. Unfortunately a wolf has also spotted the deer.  Is the a real wolf or a faerie from the other side of the wall? In a split second decision, she decides to kill the wolf first and then the deer.  The next night a faerie named Tamlin comes to their cottage and tells Feyre she must uphold the treaty between humans and Faeries. She must either forfeit her life in the same manner she killed the wolf faerie or live the rest of her life as her guest.

The first part of the book is great. The cat and mouse game between Feyre and Tamlin is delightful. Feyre spends most of her time in his house trying to find ways out of the Treaty to go home to her family. Tamlin for his part tries to be polite and clearly his flirting skills are rusty. In the true vein of Beauty of the Beast they eventually start to understand each other and fall in love. Feyre doesn’t realize that Tamlin and his court are cursed and by the time she does it’s too late.

This would have been good place to end and where I felt the book should have ended but it went on.  Which is a shame because it would have been a better cliffhanger ending than the one we got. The tempo of the book slowed down as Feyre has to complete three tasks to save Tamlin.  It completely bogged down the narrative  I appreciate the whole, girl must save the guy thing but it was too much. Though the ending seemed like a happily ever after, there are still some loose ends to keep the series going.  They left  me a little wary of what the next book be like. Will it be more like the first half or the second.  I guess good news for Miss Maas, is that I can’t wait for Queen of Shadows, the next book in the Throne of Glass Series.

Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Featured imageThis is actually the second book I’ve read this year that is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. This one is only okay.  I liked the concept but I’m only meh on the result.  Arcadia was once ruled by a line of wise Kings until about 900 years ago when the King died and the Prince was overtaken by the Gentle Lord, aka the Prince of Demons.  The Gentle Lord cuts off Arcadia from the world, covering the sky and granting citizen’s bargains that never go as they hope.  Nyx’s father was one of those who thought it he could bare the price.  He asked for his wife to bear children.  The Gentle Lord agreed to help and granted her with twin girls.  For payment for granting him his wish, one girl would live happily ever after but the other girl, would have to become his bride on her 17th birthday.  If he did not hold up his side of the bargain, the Gentle Lord would kill both girls.  Nyx’s father, who is the leader of a group set out to destroy the Gentle Lord so for 17 years, Nyx has been groomed to a weapon to bring him down.  In those years, she has become bitter and full of hatred for her father, her aunt and even her sister who loved her.  So Nyx goes to the Gentle Lord’s castle as his wife, with the full intention of destroying him.  Two things that Nyx was not prepared for is finding an ally in the Shade, a shadow of the Gentle Lord, and the Gentle Lord himself.  For all the monstrous deeds, the Gentle Lord is nothing like she expects.  He doesn’t force himself on her nor does he grant her freedom.  He gives a choice every night.  Guess her name and she will be free.  Guess wrong and she will die.  As time goes by, Nyx starts to realize that the Gentle Lord is not who everyone thinks he is and like in Beauty and the Beast falls in love with him.

I liked how Nyx isn’t an innocent.  She’s angry and doesn’t try to shy away from her dark thoughts.  All her life she has wanted to be loved.  For someone to tell her that she doesn’t have to do what is planned.  That her sacrifice is appreciated.  To have the love of her father that her sister has.  To love her for who she is and surprisingly she finds that in the Gentle Lord. I wanted to root for them as a couple but I never really felt connected with them. The introduction of the Shade was an attempt to create a love triangle into the story but Nyx was never really in love with him and all of their scenes felt forced.  (Note to YA authors: not all books need a love triangle.)

I really wanted to like this book. It’s not that I didn’t like it but it wasn’t as great as I hoped and so I was disappointed.  I guess not all books can be great.

Review: Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Featured imageThings are getting real for Calaena, Chaol, and Dorian and they have new friends too!  Just like my review of the previous book, Crown of Midnight this review will contain spoilers! Spoilers from this book as well as Throne of Glass and Crown of Midnight. So if you haven’t read any of them and don’t want it spoiled for then don’t read any further. 

(P.S. Usually Kate and I edit each others posts before they go live but since I want her to read this series I didn’t ask her to take a look.  Please forgive any errors I might have made.)

Now that is out of the way, let’s get started.

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Review: Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

A woman wakes up burned, shot, and with broken bones in a cave. She can’t remember who she is. She can’t remember how she got there. She can only remember the pain and some instinctual things like a need to eat. Slowly, she’s able to find food and put some things together. She finds the remains of a burned village. She hunts some deer. She wanders down a road and meets Wright and slowly starts to put the pieces together of who and what she is when she bites Wright and drinks his blood. She is part of a vampire race but she is special. She has been genetically engineered with a little human DNA so that she can be alert during the day and she has much more tolerance to the sun. She’s also dark-skinned, something that isn’t true about her people. Without knowing who she is or what happened to her (and the others? are the others like her?) she has to figure out what happened to her home. While trying to figure out what happened to her to make her have amnesia she meets her father who tells her that her name is Shori and explains why she is so special. Shori and her father begin the investigation into what happened to her and her family. Clearly there was a fire, but what caused it? Shori is put on the the path to solving the mystery of her destroyed community and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

This was a thrilling vampire novel, certainly the best one I’ve read since Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Since the main character has amnesia, we discover things about her species and her world as she does. You start to wonder pretty early on if what has happened to her is garden variety people hunting vampires, or garden variety people being racists asshats or something worse. When she is shocked and horrified by the behavior of humans and other vampires, we are, too. There is so much to say about this book but I don’t want to spoil anything (and I really want to do it justice if I’m going to analyze the themes of the book) so I won’t go into details. I will however say that this book could be a model for all of paranormal romance (even though it wasn’t a romance). I was so pleased with how it dealt with issues of consent that are so often missing from novels about vampires.

This book was so enjoyable and so wonderful and I can’t gush about it enough. Seriously. You should go read it. Now. You should read it now.

Fledgling