Thoughts on Signings

(featuring Sarah J. Maas, Jay Kristoff, Amy Kaufman, Ryan Graudin, and Evelyn Skye)

In the recent past I have attended two book signings and panels. One (that was up posed to be with Casey but she got sick) with Sarah J. Maas in conversation with Evelyn Skye, and another with Ryan Grauding (the oauther of Wolf by Wolf), Jay Kristoff, and Amy Kaufman (the co-authors of Illuminae).

First lets talk about the ladder. IT WAS AMAZING. I totally loved both of their novels and in conversation together they were smart, witty, and hilarious. Also I won an ARC (advanced readers copy) of Gemina the sequel to Illuminae, out in September 2016, review coming soon. They talked about what Star Wars characters they would be, since it was almost Star Wars day, May the Fourth, Amy said she would be C3PO ven though she would love to be Rey, and Jay said be he would be Chewy because… Have you seen the guy? He’s like seven feet tall! Also they had Australian accents, which I love. Amy said Illuminae came to her in a dream (like Stephanie Meyer) but u like Meyers hers was an anxiety dream where she was do-wrįtïńg a book with Jay but she didn’t know what it was about for the entire dream.

The Sarah J. Maas signing was also great, but less so since Casey was sick. Evelyn Skye was a great moderator and it was unreal to see Sarah in person. She told us about herself in high school (she started Lord of the Rings club and had life size cardboard cutouts of the characters), she had a gossip blog that was practically her diary where she talked about her crush and her life but no one read it so it was okay. Until one day a girl came up to her and said, “Put a lock on your diary” and she realized that the whole school had gathered together every day to read it together. She was cool!

All in all I love bookish events and resolve to go to more in the future.

-Clara

Adaptations

Book to movie adaptations is a huge concept that I can’t begin to cover in one post but I really wanna talk about them. You have amazing successful adaptations (TFIOS, The Hungar Games, Harry Potter) but then you have those terrible ones that are terrible, ALLEGIANT. Of coarse, you can’t forget about the good ones that flopped and we didn’t get the sequel we wanted, Vampire Academy and (kind of) City of Bones. Oh and there’s the TV shows, like The Mortal Instruments (AKA Shadowhunters), Pretty Little Liars, and Game of Thrones. I haven’t acctually watched or read the last two, but people like them. Shadowhunters, on the other hand, I have both watched and read that, and I didn’t love it as books or a TV show. I think most YA book to movie adaptions are actually really bad don’t do justice to the books. My theory is that is mainly due to the mindset, as universeofyabooks.wordpress.com said, of the director, thinking that it’s just a big chance to make money and often not taking in the true meaning of the book.

Vampire Academy, for example, a movie that I actually enjoyed watching and reading (though I don’t think either the books or the movie are particularly well written) was changed a lot when it was made into a movie. Basically the director decided to target the movie at an entirely different audience (stereotypical teenage girls) which is okay if they tried to keep the origin essence of the book, which they did a little bit but not really. The adds where neon pink and green and said “They Suck at School”. Basically the whole ad campaign was based on the idea that they where vampire royalty who where trained in fighting since kindergarten but they also had normal high school problems. Which I think is honestly pretty dumb and not at all what Richelle Mead had in mind when writing that series.

I feel like I don’t even need to say anything about Harry Potter. We all love both the books and the movies. They are probably the best adaptation I’ve ever watched or read. They perfectly capture the meaning to f the books. Of coarse we still have to deal with the issue of casting. The main three characters where exactly as I’d imagined them but that’s because I had already seen them in ads when I started reading that series. In fact the casting was pretty spot on. The only person who wasn’t perfect was Hagrid. I remember watching it for the first time in third grade and being so mad at how they cast Hagrid. But now, of coarse, I see Hagrid like that in my mind. I’m actually kind of mad that I don’t remember how I used to see him in my mind.

My main idea is that I don’t want Hollywood to stop making YA book to movie adaptations, I’m pretty exited for Ms. Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children to come out and I’m extremely exited for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to come out in November! Also I have some books that I’d love to see movies of if their done right. But I just thought no people should know that every time and Allegiant type movie comes out it breaks thousands of people’s hearts. I just want Hollywood to take more consideration when adapting movies. I think the best adaptations are created when the author is consulted. So please, put more work into our adaptations in the future. Because those books are OURS just as much as they are the authors.