Reply to April 2026 -- What are you reading?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]On my beach vacation I read Ordinary People and When Women were Dragons.
They were both okay, didn’t love either.
Ordinary People was well written but my patience for 20-somethings who make dumb life choices and can’t communicate effectively is limited.  Same reason I can’t watch shows like Girls.
When Women Were Dragons also well written and an interesting concept (sort of an allegory or magical realism type thing), but I found it a little simplistic.  It oversold the sexism in the 1950s and 1960: — I mean, there was definitely a lot of sexism but this was almost a cartoonish level of sexism.  I get that it isn’t meant to be a realistic book (hence dragons) but it irked me a little.  [/quote]

I take it this was not Ordinary People written by Judith Guest, published in 1980? [/quote]

I suspect she means Normal People.[/quote]

Yes I heard my favorite actor/pod-caster raving over her series of books - just raving! So i tried to read Normal People and got so mired between the angst and the ennui. No thank you! Too bad b/c I thought i had something there - oh well.[/quote]

The Hulu series Normal People, based on the book, is fantastic. It’s quite hot. Highly recommend. [/quote]

+1000

That show was amazing. I haven't read the book because of the mixed reviews and I loved the show so much I don't want to dislike the book. [/quote]

When I was in grad school for creative writing I remember we had a big discussion in one of my classes about why you get great book/ bad movie/tv adaption or average-at-best book with a great adaptation and there are not a lot of exceptions or in-between situations. The only instance I could think of where I truly loved a book and the film of it was A Clockwork Orange. (But that film has about the biggest problem it could have, which is in the casting. I think I love that film as much as I do because of Malcolm Mcdowell's performance, but he was way too old to play Alex.  The Alex in the book is only 15 and he is younger than any of the rest of the gang, which he is running. What the authorities do to him when they catch him -- deep psychological conditioning by combining his beloved Beethoven with torture and images of crime and violence -- is a very different proposition with a teenager as opposed to a young adult. The Alex in the film is old enough that a major them of the book disappears.)

Anybody have instances of where you loved both the book and film/show that arose from it?  [/quote]

Pachinko. I actually think the series is better than the book, maybe because it's so visually stunning.[/quote]

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