For whatever reason, my book vs movie post from February 24th was somehow deleted. So without further ado, here it is again!

About a week ago my dad and I finally saw The Maze Runner movie. This was a big deal for me because I had tried reading the book of the same name, the first of a series by James Dashner, but was having such a hard time with the names and slang in the book that I gave up. I knew that there was going to be a movie when I had attempted reading it, and thought the concept was so unique and different that I had to read it before the movie came out. But when I tried reading it, it was like every other word was “shank,” or “shuck,” or “greenie,” and it was all substituted for actual words in a sentence and I just couldn’t follow it.

So I decided that I would wait until the movie came out in theaters. The plan was that I’d see it on the big screen and then if I liked the movie I’d read the book. My main hope was that after I see the movie I might understand all the slang better, and get a hang of the names and the story line so that when I read it I wasn’t too lost. Well, unfortunately, I never got the chance to see the movie in the theatre so I ended up having to wait until it was available to rent on demand. My dad and I both wanted to see it, so we had waited for a time when we could watch it together. That was a week ago – more than a month after it came out on DVD and on demand.

I have to say, though, that it was worth the wait. I really loved the movie. All I knew going into it was that this guy shows up in a place filled with all these boys (sort of a Lord of the Flies feeling place) and they’ve all had their memories wiped and are trapped in a maze. That was all I knew. I’m so glad that that’s all I knew, because I thought the movie was really good (as long as you like young adult mystery-scifi stories… and weird looking kids. Because there are a lot of weird looking kids in this movie. They obviously didn’t have the budget for Harry Potter-attractive level actors) and decided I should give the story a second chance.

I started reading The Maze Runner less than a week ago, and I was intrigued while I was reading, but I wasn’t hooked even by the quarter way through mark. So I started to think that maybe I should give up on it – it wasn’t as good as the movie, and it just wasn’t drawing me in. It was almost like the book knew what I was thinking because at the end of the chapter I was reading, it left on a cliffhanger that had me thinking, “Oh, shit! This just got real!!” I immediately began falling in love with the book, and by the midway mark I never wanted to put it down (“I’ll only read one more chapter before bed!…. unless it ends on a cliffhanger and then I’ll read one more chapter before bed!…”)

I took the weekend off from reading to attempt my hand at trying a Kindle (you’ll get that story soon enough) and the second I picked up the book again I felt like no one could stop me. I spend a straight 4 hours today reading the entire rest of the book, and then another hour running out to Barnes & Noble to pick up the next two books of the series, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure. Great book. GREAT book.

But here’s the issue: the movie was awesome – but it was nothing like the book. Granted there was still the same premise, but the entire movie was completely out of order, and glorified, exaggerated, and just different. So from a “book critic’s” point of view, I would have to say that the movie was a poor representation of the book. But as a movie lover, and not thinking about the correlation between the two, I thought the movie was really great! This thought really hinders my book versus movie tally, because as a movie it was freakin’ awesome! But it wasn’t the book.

So for this tally, I’m going to be super lenient and give credit to both. If my main question when figuring out the tally is “was the movie better than the book?” My answer is no, and the book should get the win. But if I think about it, the movie got me interested in the book. I thought the book was boring and hard to follow until I saw the movie. I feel like that in itself should mean something.

So here it is: Second book vs movie tally: Book: 2 Movie:1. You know it’s a weird tally when the movie almost gets the point, and I still absolutely loved the book.

Until next time!

Rachel