Top Ten Tuesday – Text to Talk

Movie adaptations are big business. Great books are turned into movies ranging from excellent to truly awful. Terrible books sometimes make excellent movies. I reviewed a couple lists when I was putting this together to ensure I didn’t forget something I should have included. What actually happened is that my TBR pile grew significantly. There are a lot of movies that I didn’t know were based on books. Damn you, B&B.

There are a couple movies coming out that I’m looking forward to, but I’ve decided to focus on book to movie adaptations that I like. These are not all stellar adaptations. These are simply movies that, for whatever reason, I like.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I’ve loved all three movies so far, but this was my favourite of the books. I love the way they turned it into the movie. Phillip Seymore Hoffman, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland are casting perfection.

What’s That Book About? (@VCandrewsBooks )

There’s a very small window to capture a reader’s attention and as much as we hate to say it, covers play a giant role. If you don’t grab them with the cover, they’re probably not going to check out the blurb, which inevitably means that they’re probably not going to buy the book. Unless you’ve developed some great word of mouth, you need to have something that gets a person to pick a book up off the shelf. Modern covers have become so static; it’s hard to tell one from the other. Young Adult books have been bogged down in ‘pretty lady’ syndrome for far longer than appropriate. Whether it’s a good looking teen or the decapitated version of the same idea, it’s about the girls. This is especially true in romancey type stories.

It works, to a point, but it does terrible things for the representation of women. Typically, we’re girls, writing about girls, for girls. Let’s try not to objectify ourselves. There are enough people doing that for us. But Stacked has written an amazing article on that topic. I recommend you read it. I want to talk about how deceptive book covers have become. From a few of the successful authors I’ve spoken to, sometimes their input into the cover art is minimal. Occasionally, it even impacts the book content. If I’m remembering the story correctly, the necklace on the cover of Kelly Armstrong’s Darkest Powers Trilogy wasn’t even in the book. She had to add it to make the cover make sense. I might be remembering this story wrong, but it’s what’s in my memory.

But the positive part of that story is that the cover ended up represented in the content of the book. The artwork should give you an idea of the story you’re about to encounter. If the cover has someone walking through a misty field, there better damn well be a misty field in the book. If it’s a sexy time cover, it should have some sexy time content. You know what I mean. When I was a teen and I stumbled across Flowers in the Attic (yes, I’m pulling from the V.C. Andrews well, she’s a wealth of content ideas), I knew from the cover

– and the creepier insert picture –

that this was not going to be a happy story. Things were going to be dark. They were going to be off putting. It was going to be awesome. These covers held up for a good long while. For at least a couple decades, you knew that if you were getting an Andrews’ book, you were getting a tiny part of the picture on the cover and more characters once you opened it. Even the 90s release followed the same format.

It worked. But all good things eventually become tacky and the covers started to change. There are far too many to display, but these are the ones that start us down this awful rabbit hole.

We started getting the ‘girl’ cover in a 2005 publication. But hey, at least she looks a little forlorn.

Then there were three covers were released in 2011. There’s a more stylized cover.

It still gives the reader a pretty good idea that there’s something sinister going on and this house is a major part of what’s going on.

Then we go back to the girl format with the girl from the back. What’s this cover telling us about the book? Could be anything. Could be that a blonde girl spends a lot of time outside in a flower garden. But it’s black and white with pops of red, so your seasoned reader will recognize that all may not be what it seems.

And then we get the worst – the WORST – cover adaptation. A young, attractive girl staring canoodling with an equally attractive young boy. They’re bathed in sunlight. They’re outside. There’s an image of a grand house in the background. It looks warm and inviting. It could be about fucking tennis.

Do you look at this book cover and think hey, this book includes horrible abuse, a terrible mother, incest, and death by poisoning? Nope. That is not what this cover image sells. It makes me livid. Why are you lying to the reader, publishing company? Why do you think young adults are too sensitive to handle a cover that gives them the truth? You want them to read the book, right?

It’s time for a complete overthrow of the cover art industry. Can we go back to illustrators please? Back to books with character? Or forward to something entirely different? Who’s with me?

Guilty Pleasure, Shmilty Pleasure

In the book IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, Chuck Klosterman addresses the concept of the ‘guilty pleasure’. We’ve all got them. You know that thing you hate to admit you love because it might make you look exceptionally uncool? Yeah, I’ve got them. You’ve got them. They’re evidence that we live up to that onion metaphor. But Klosterman suggests something entirely different– You should never feel guilty about something that gives you pleasure (you know, in that lighthearted, doesn’t involve crazy law breaking or hurting other people, etc, etc, etc kind of happy).

Should I feel bad that I’m a grown ass woman and I still regularly watch Degrassi? Hell no. I am proud of my love of all things Degrassi.

My love of KD? Nope, no guilt.

My driving need to collect all the V.C. Andrews books published between 1979 – 1996? Maybe, just maybe. I should feel guilty about that one.

These are not good books. They are the Twilight of their time. Horrible relationships. Forbidden love. Barely veiled abuse. And yet, I still love them. Dawn (from The Cutler Series) is the first book I remember staying up all night to read. Wrapped up in my blankets, reading through the sleep until I’d gotten that second, third, fourth wind. Scandalizing content! There was sex, guys. Sex. With a main character that was my age. My junior high self could barely stand it.

As I’ve aged, I’ve maintained a little place in my heart for Andrews’ stuff (not the newer stuff, it’s just not the same – yes, I know she died a long time ago, but there came a point that they just weren’t ‘good’ anymore). I even love the original movie version of Flowers in the Attic. It’s awsful (honestly, the more I think about it the more this explains why I actually found a cheesy love of the Twilight crapstravaganza). So, when Lifetime announced the revamp of Flowers in the Attic, I was stoked. I haven’t actually watched it yet, but I’ve heard exactly the right kind of feedback.

Then yesterday, I stumbled across this announcement. They’re doing movies for the rest of the Dollanganger Series? That’s pretty rad. They’re doing My Sweet Audrina! Amazing! This is the news that made my March. I mean it. That was my favourite of the books. It’s the only stand-alone under the Andrews’ umbrella, and it benefits from that. I read it dozens of times. It’s one of the few I’m missing, and I haven’t been able to locate it in my scouring of used book stores. Is there a better indicator that people love a book than that it remains in a collection? I think not.

I was recently complaining that Hollywood is actively trying to ruin my childhood (yes, I’m talking to you Jem Movie announcement), but this announcement gives me hope. As long as they’re as trashy and fluffy as the original books, they will be perfect. While wandering around the internet, looking for pictures for this post, I found the ‘Read the Good Trash Movement’.

It’s a few years old now, but I love this idea. I might just decide to take this up next year. Would you participate? I think you should.