Thursday, September 12, 2013

GRAB(ook) Club Discussion - The Hunger Games

This month's book was one that I really was not sure about.  I had actually read parts of it before because my son had to read it for school last year (in middle school).

It was hard for me to get past some other road blocks, though--my son had read the book and wanted to see the movie--so, I saw the movie, BEFORE I read the book (very unlike me).

Because the writing was a bit pedestrian, it was hard for me to imagine the book for myself without being influenced by the movie.  It did detail some things that made the movie richer for me, but I struggled to be able to shut the movie from my mind completely.

My question:

Do you tend to read the book and then see the movie?  And how do you separate these two interpretations?  For Hunger Games, had you already read the book and then seen the movie or did you see the movie and read the book?  Do you think they left out too much from the book?


After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for The Hunger Games.  You can get your own copy of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins at bookstores including Amazon.


4 comments:

areyoukiddingme said...

I've done it both ways. I prefer to read the book first, but sometimes I don't know there's a book. I'm usually disappointed in the movie, because it's hard to capture and match the image I have in my head. But I enjoy both forms of media.

J said...

I almost always read the book first. The one major recent exception that I can think of, although it's a musical instead of a movie, was Wicked. To me, the book is almost always better, but I can still enjoy the movie as an adaptation of the book, and if ever the movie is better, well then hey, awesome surprise!

Lollipop Goldstein said...

I pretty much always go book first, movie second. So I haven't seen this movie first, and I think it would have bothered me to have visuals in my head while I read. I do want to see the movie (as well as Catching Fire) so I'll read the next book and then watch the two movies close together.

loribeth said...

I very much prefer to read the book first, if possible. (I agree, the book is almost always better.) These days, though, if the movie is already out & you haven't read the book, it's still hard to avoid having the movie influence your reading of the book (particularly when you're a movie nut and faithfully read Entertainment Weekly every week like me, lol). I haven't seen the movie, but I already know a lot about it -- and so I couldn't help but picture Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss & Woody Harrelson as Haymitch and Donald Sutherland as President Snow. Likewise, when we were reading "To Kill a Mockingbird," I couldn't picture (or hear) anyone else but Gregory Peck as Atticus.

I do remember reading "The Runaway Jury" by John Grisham & thinking that Dennis Farina would be perfect in the role that eventually went to Gene Hackman. ; )

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