Book vs Movie: The Silence of the Lambs

If you've read through my profile you'll know that the Hannibal series is on my list of favourite movies and The Silence of the Lambs has been for many years. For some odd reason I hadn't bothered to read it, I had read one out of the Hannibal series - Hannibal Rising but never the others. Then while in college, living in a small apartment over a used book store for a short period I spotted The Silence of the Lambs out on their sidewalk table and I snapped it up - I had to read it. It sat on my shelves though, along with the other books I had got at the same time and never bothered to read. Then a few things happened:

1. Project TBR
2. 0x16
3. 2015 reading challenge

So I looked at the challenges and decided to mash them together, I would try and fill my challenge topics with mostly old books sitting on my shelf and so The Silence of the Lambs was lifted from the dust again.

If you don't know what this book is about then at this point I'm guessing that you probably don't want to, but here you are anyways.

Synopsis:
A young agent in training for the FBI named Clarice Starling yearns for acceptance to the FBI. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the famous cannibal sits locked in an asylum after being caught for serial murder. Dead girls are found floating, pieces of skin taken from their bodies, and somewhere a man they call 'Buffalo Bill' is plotting his next strike. With the FBI overloaded and under pressure to solve the serial murders, Section Chief Jack Crawford calls on Starling to assist in some information gathering. Soon Starling finds herself face to face with none other than Hannibal Lecter and though terrible she's intrigued by the small bits of information he provides. It doesn't take long and she finds herself on the case, chasing down the notorious Buffalo Bill.

Review:
The book is just as brilliant as the movie, and at the same time a bit of a let down because of it. As someone who has read another of the Hannibal books, which was adapted much later to film (Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris) and was pleased to find some differences, I'm not pleased to say there wasn't much this time around. If you've watched the movie and are looking to read the book for those left out scenes and things that have been changed for the cinematic universe, you will be disppointed.

Though this book is well written and I'm sure would have been creepy, suspenseful and just the right amount of thrilling excitement, it was lost because of the movie. I wish I had had the sense at 14 to read the book before I ever let the movie play across the screen. The movie is <i>very</i> similar to the book, sure there are some differences, you learn more about Jack Crawford, you learn a little more about Buffalo Bill and how he goes about his plans, but mostly you get Clarice Starling and some slightly altered conversations with most of it being the same.

Though some may suggest otherwise, I wouldn't say that having the characters in your mind from the movie coming into this book is a bad thing. There really isn't much by the means of physical description given to the main character - Clarice, and minimal descriptors to the other characters. With things being so much the same it's very easy to picture <i>everything</i> in the book. Kudos to the directors and everyone behind the making of the movie, their adaptation was spot on, no one should have need to read the book.

The main differences you'll see between the two have mostly to do with the investigation. The book puts Starling as a bit more of a rule breaker, an agent willing to bend the rules a bit, willing to get kicked out of the academy in order to get the bad guy. Just like the movie, there is never something not happening within these 367 pages, things connecting, clues being left and leads to follow. I can totally understand why this book rose to the popularity that it did, especially in the year that it did. Today it's not as much the shocking thriller it was meant to be, in my own opinion anyways, with things like the Hunger Games - children murdering children classifying as a young adult novel.

Though the book was very well written and should have been a spectacular read, I wish I didn't take the time to read it - the movie did that for me.

The Last Hour...

So my first read-a-thon has come to an end and I have some mixed feelings about it. My day off was busier than anticipated and though I did get some reading in, I'm not all that sure it was more than I would have without the read-a-thon in place. That being said I'm interested in trying again maybe I'll challenge myself next weekend on our road trip to BC, plenty of time there!

In my previous read-a-thon post, I suggested that I may be done The Darkest Part of the Forest before the start of the read-a-thon, however I decided to save it. So I read almost two books in the 24 hours, not bad but I know I could do better. I'll be sure to write up a book vs. movie review for The Silence of the Lambs at some point today as I've always enjoyed the movie but this is my first time reading the book.

Did you participate in the challenge? How many books do you generally read in a read-a-thon?

Next time I think I'll do a couple things to improve my consumption of words.

1. Stay up for the night, or at least later than normal maximize on the opportunity. I definitely would have been about to get that third book in if I had.

2. Plan to be busy and prepare myself with an audiobook. I spent a couple hours out an about, if I had had an audiobook I could have gone along 'reading' while doing everything else.

3. Participate in the group activities to make endless hours of reading more fun than it already is!

4. Have snacks... lots of snacks.

That is everything I accomplished for this first read-a-thon, not too bad I don't think. I'll post the other review after breakfast.

PS. Yes, I love Doctor Who, amongst other things.

The Darkest Part of the Forest Review!

I read this as part of the 2015 Reading Challenge read-a-thon... well, finished it I should say. This was my choice for the book published this year. The cover is obviously gorgeous and the author has a name that draws people to her books so I was excited that this was going to be my first Holly Black book. It did not disappoint.

Firstly, can I just say that this was so refreshing. It is so nice to read a fantasy book that is a stand alone did such things even exist anymore? I swear they didn't everything needed to be a series to get the full story and yet somehow Black manages to show that you don't need to write 2000+ pages to finish a story. And I'd also like to slip in that she made reference to my two favourite Doctors near the beginning of the book so that was just a little extra going 'see? I'm fan-freaking-tastic!'

Moving on...

Synopsis:

For anyone who hasn't heard about this book yet here's the quick run down:
Hazel and her brother Ben live in the town of Fairfold, a town occupied by both human and faerie folk. For years the sides have lived in agreement, a fragile peace of sorts; the Fae leave the locals alone on the terms that tourists are free game. With a Glass coffin that has sat in the forest for generations, a peculiar boy with horns locked sleeping within the tourists don't just come, they flood.

Hazel and Ben, like many before them fall in love with the boy in the glass coffin, their childhood built on stories of the prince and his glorious lives. The Prince only true love can save, Hazel the knight, and Ben the Bard, but as the years pass so do their stories. That is until he woke.

Now Hazel and Ben must find the Prince and stop whatever destructive force is threatening the town before it's too late.

Review:

4.5/5

I loved how this book had a modern and yet very old time fairytale feel all at once. This fairytale world of knights and magic swords and a sleeping prince you would never expect to see in the same realm as selfies and partying teenagers and yet it's here and it happens, in some cases in the same sentences. Somehow Black makes it seem effortless, as if that was how it always naturally occurred. Her descriptions were vivid and beautiful - I didn't want to put this down.

The story itself progresses nicely, there isn't much down time there's always something happening and there's always a story being told, the past, the present, what this character was doing, what they did etc. I don't have much to say with regards to this as it was well done.

Character development for our main characters was good, Black providing plenty of history for them. There were some characters I would have liked to have had more on, I would have loved to learn a little more about Jack's life and not his history but his actual life and more of how he felt with the humans. I also would have liked to have learned a little more about the Alderking and Sorrel. Though enough back story was given to prove what was needed for the story.

All in all I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5 because I'm greedy and would have loved if it was a little longer.

A Day of Firsts...

So today is a day of firsts. The first day I've ever blogged for real like, not Tumblr (they call them blogs but are they really?... I just look at the pretty pictures...) and for another first, my first blog post - if that wasn't obvious by that first first I posted. Today also marks the first day of the first read-a-thon I've participated in! It's also the first day of spring (not that you would know that here, at a toasty -17c) but that still means summer is coming so this kid is happy!

Alas, this is a reading blog, so I'll get onto the reading part - you know, that read-a-thon I was talking about? This is the 'First Term Read-a-thon' from the 2015 Reading Challenge group on Goodreads taking place from 8pm CST time (an hour ahead of myself) for 24hours. I don't know where to set my goals for this as I have never done a read-a-thon before so I'm going to set it to something I think may be attainable and I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

I hope to be able to hammer out a couple of books in the prescribed 24hrs and knock a couple more books off my personal 2015 challenge list. So I will be reading (or trying to read):

This is topic four in my challenge - a book published this year. I plan to finish this as I have already started it. Isn't the cover gorgeous?! When I saw it I knew that I had to have it and of course I've also heard amazing things about Holly Black. However, there are many hours between now and the start of the read-a-thon so this may be done or nearly done by then.

This is topic ten in my challenge - a mystery or thriller. I loved these movies, and I actually read Hannibal Rising already so when I saw this at the used book store I scooped it up. Despite being anxious to read it at the time, I never got past the first few pages - too carried away with life. This is the perfect opportunity.

And if time allows I'll finish this one up! This is topic 52 in my reading challenge - a book you started but never finished. I've already read almost half of this book and it was good, but for some reason I decided to put it down and read twenty other books first... I'll be happy to finish this one, another with a nice cover. Quick note: the downfall of this book is that the pages are white and I mean WHITE wash your hands and don't eat anything while you read this one because they pages are easily dirtied.

IN THE EVENT THAT BOOK ONE IS FINISHED BY THE START OF THIS SHINDIG:

I shall read...

Don't judge me... Ok judge all you want. This is week two for the challenge and I bent the exactness of this one a bit - a romance. Many will be up in arms over me calling it a 'romance' and I agree, I don't think there's much of a romance here, maybe a hint here and there. However, the story parts of the series draw me in a bit, even though it drips in it's former Twilight life. Plus there's a relationship there and regardless of if you agree or disagree with it's romance aspect - it's there. Mostly though, I just have a strong urge to finish the series.


So that's it! Call me crazy, and maybe I am, I'll post an update tomorrow night and we'll see where I stand!