Book vs. Film: Little Women

# SPOILER WARNING!!! I know I don’t normally do this, but in this case I will discuss much of the plot in both the book and movie ‘Little Women’.

This is a breakthrough 52 Books in 52 Weeks post and will count as number 14. I wanted to do a special post on this book and its movie adaption, but it will still count towards my count 🙂

So those that have been following me for awhile would know well my love of the book Little Women. In fact it is one of my favourite books and definitely one of my favourite movie adaptions. I realised that I had not read it in many years and so when I saw it at work I grabbed it and once again lost myself in this beautful story. It is one of the few books I have cried in and I am not ashamed to admit that I still welled up, not so much in the sad parts, moreso in the extremely joyous parts like the return of their father after he fell ill in the war. Interestingly I never noticed before that in the book they say he fell ill, but I am pretty sure that in the movie he was injured – doesn’t really matter. The coming home was beautiful and joyous and I welled up… I totally blame the pre-baby pills hahaha.

I have pondered for awhile about doing some book vs. movie posts and so I guess this will become my first 🙂 First of all as I have stated previously I loved both the book and the movie (1994 version), there was a lot cut out of the book (let’s face it, it is pretty long) and mushed together in the movie, but I think it works. So let’s talk about differences.

• In the book both the Father and Mr. Lawrence have a much larger role in the plot. Mr. Lawrence certainly has a closer relationship with the family in the book. In the movie I didn’t really notice Mr. Lawrence so much except to wish I had a Mr. Lawrence to give me an awesome piano (well that was when I first watched it… I was pretty young. Later on I just wished for Laurie 🙂 ). Looking at it now I don’t think this is a terrible thing, yes he was a great character in the book, but I also felt that the movie was more centred on being entirely about the girl’s relationships with each other and their experiences. I think sacrificing the film time of those characters for the sake of this is worth it.
• Where was Aunt Carroll in the movie? She doesn’t exist in the movie. To be honest I totally get this, she is basically a non character in the book (harsh I know, but true), basically her entire reason for being in the book was to be a catalyst for Amy to go to Europe. By taking her out and putting Aunt March in this role they made her a more important part of the girls lives which I think made the willing of Plumfield to Jo more believable.
• I loved how Laurie was portrayed in the movie, I think it was done so well and to me stayed true to the character in the book. I think this character developed beautifully throughout the book. In the book the relationship development between he and Amy makes a lot more sense than in the movie. To be honest in the movie I didn’t totally buy that he loved her at first, I thought it was kinda like he married her and the love grew later.
  

  OMG Princess Daisy is going to make out with Batman – somebody call Luigi!!!

• I love that the book goes on to years later so you see what happened with them, how their journey is going and whether they got their castles in the sky. This was lacking in the movie, but it ended in true Hollywood fashion with two attractive people making out in the rain, so I suppose that is cool too 🙂
  
• The death of Beth was handled so lovingly in both the book and movie, I can’t fault it and don’t want to look for faults in it.
• I do wish Beth’s character had been a little more fleshed out in the movie than it was. She was so beautifully and perfectly depicted in the book. Meg in the movie was interesting too, gone were the unattractive character traits like spending beyond her husbands means and lusting after a rich lifestyle and how she deals with those faults of character. Jo’s character was pretty much like she is in the book, wild, wooly and abrasive on the outside – warm, tender and loving on the inside 🙂
• This film combined with ‘Interview with the Vampire’ began my love for Kirsten Dunst 🙂

I think the thing that made the movie adaption so great for me was that the cast was just wonderful, seriously that casting director needed a raise. Not only were they great in their own roles, but their interactions with other members of the cast were poignant, purposeful and moving.

Nawwwww

Don’t expect me to always provide such glowing reviews, but every now and then you might get one. Obviously this review is completely biased by my childhood love of this movie which undoubtedly has lots to do with the fact I grew up with two rough and tumble brothers and desperately wanted a sister hahaha.

What is your fave book to film adaptation?

52 Books in 52 Weeks – March

I was keeping up the steam well in February. Unfortunately I am out of Belador books for now haha, perhaps more will come along. As I said I am looking to mix it up a bit this year so keep your eyes out for some non-fiction books coming up in this list soon as well as biographies.

9. The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

I really, really, really enjoyed this book! I totally gave it 5 stars on Goodreads! This story is about a brilliant Professor who happens to have undiagnosed Asperger’s and his journey through life and trying to locate a suitable life partner. I think part of the reason that I enjoyed this book is because I really respect that way that the brains and thought processes of “Aspies” work. I like their honesty, you never have to worry that they have another agenda going on and they are so often incredibly intelligent and great conversationalists. I once went on a date with someone with Asperger’s and had no idea until he sent back his thickshake sighting that they had provided him a milkshake not a thickshake because… he then sighted how thick it should be and the ratio of milk to icecream that should be included. The poor server… it was hilarious though 🙂 Good for him. It didn’t work out, we just weren’t that interested in each other, he told me upfront… awesome! No time wasted hahaha. This book is totally and completely worth your time, read it. I actually laughed out loud when he presented a talk about Asperger’s to Aspie’s, that is a great few pages. Please read it! Very bummed because my Library doesn’t have the second book, I sent through a suggestion for purchase 🙂

10. Fallen in Love (Fallen #3.5) – Lauren Kate

This book… hmm. I just, I could have done without this book. I get what she was trying to do here with explaining all the background of the other characters and their love experiences, etc., but I just felt like it didn’t work for me.

Perhaps by the time I got to this book I was just kinda over the storyline or something? It was drawn out over many books and whilst with the Belador series I have just got more into it, that didn’t happen for me with the Fallen series.

By the end of the last book of the series I was kinda ready to walk away from the characters and story, plus I felt Cam got royally ripped off. The best book in this series was the one where she went through a bunch of her past lives with Bill.

I was kinda glad it was done to be honest.

11. Rapture (Fallen #4) – Lauren Kate

Okay, so this was the last of the series. I liked the Lucifer elements and the twists with he and Luce – they were good and well thought out. The characters of Daniel and Luce themselves really started p-ing me off bigtime. I get it okay you choose love, over and over again. In doing so you have put many Angels through years of torture and broken the hearts of how many thousands of families throughout time (meaning Luce’s families)? That seems incredibly selfish and then they just kept making the same mistakes. Just damn stupid. I was pretty dissatisfied with most aspects of this final book in the series. I would not recommend it. I also feel like Cam just got handed the sh*t stick over and over again throughout history. No wonder he went dark side!

12. Defiance (Defiance #1) – CJ Redwine

This book was kind of different, I actually liked the way it threw you straight into it without a tonne of back-story so you had to get the pieces of the story as you went along. I can see that a lot of people would hate it because it is not the conventional way to tell a tale, but I liked it. *SLIGHT SPOILERS* Damn there was a lot of death and psychological torture for a YA novel. At first when they talked about the Cursed One I was kind of reminded of that Kevin Bacon cult classic Tremors hahaha.

There is not a lot of world building which would normally annoy me except for the fact that the story is told from the points of view of the two main characters so you can only build the world as much as they understand or decide to think about it that day. To be honest it p’s me off when a character randomly decides to think of the entire history of their world… who does that? We are told enough to figure out that it is loosely set in the future where man mined too far into the ground searching for resources and they released the Cursed Ones that proceeded to destroy the planet and turn everything to ashes. A group of men were able to hold them back and those men created their own cities and became the leaders (or protectors). The impression I got was that the rules of each city are basically completely developed by the ruler and in this particular city he likes his women dumb and subservient, because… POWER blah blah blah. I am not surprised that at least one woman wants to rebel… wow I would find that kind of existence sooo suffocating. There is a reason they cut the umbilical cord at birth, you know?! Anyway I digress. I really liked how different this was, it seemed to take quite a bashing on Goodreads, but the things they were upset about (most of which I have discussed) were things I liked so I will leave it up to you.

13. To wed a wicked Earl (Devine & Friends #2) – Olivia Parker

I said I would try and read different sorts of books right? Well, this was one of those. I gave it a one on Goodreads, it just wasn’t my thing you guys. I mean it was okay and all, it wasn’t the worst romance novel I have ever read and at least there was no mention of someone’s “quivering member” so it has that going for it.

I just… can’t with this book. The characters were kinda likeable, the plot was kinda okay. The only real drama happened right at the end of the book and equaled all of 2 pages of text… wtf? Apparently this is the second in the series… oops. Just for the record I am not going back for the first. I need a bit more meat in my romances, not man meat… plot meat.

Consent: Not actually that complicated

This is the best (and funniest) analogy for consent EVER WRITTEN!!!!

“omg fuck yes, I would fucking LOVE a cup of tea! Thank you!” – This is totally how I react when offered tea.
“If they say “No thank you” then don’t make them tea. At all. Don’t make them tea, don’t make them drink tea, don’t get annoyed at them for not wanting tea. They just don’t want tea, ok?”… “If they are unconscious, don’t make them tea. Unconscious people don’t want tea and can’t answer the question “do you want tea” because they are unconscious.” – Everything after this sentence is magical tea gold. 🙂

rockstar dinosaur pirate princess

http://kaffysmaffy.tumblr.com/post/780535517

A short one today as my life is currently very complicated and conspiring against my preference to spend all of my days working out what to blog. But do you know what isn’t complicated?

Consent.

It’s been much discussed recently; what with college campuses bringing in Affirmative Consent rules, and with the film of the book that managed to make lack of consent look sexy raking it in at the box office. You may not know this, but in the UK we more or less have something similar to ‘affirmative consent’ already. It’s how Ched Evans was convicted while his co-defendant was not – and is along the lines of whether the defendant had a reasonable belief that the alleged victim consented. From the court documents it appears that while the jury felt that it was reasonable to believe that the victim had consented to intercourse with the co-defendant, it…

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Fatigue…

Man, I am sooo tired this week. I feel like I need to nap all the time. This PCOS & IR stuff is balls for your social life that’s for sure haha. I finish work and get home and it seriously feels like a massive chore just to put together a decent meal.

Then naturally as the week goes on the fatigue gets worse and so I make worse choices for dinner. My inner monologue the other night kinda went like this:

If I was a good daughter/wife I would cook up some Salmon with a beautiful walnut salad for everyone. Yeah… but god damn I am so tired and I would have to go down to the fish market and to the supermarket to get the stuff for the salad. Hmm… maybe there is some chicken breast frozen in the freezer… there isn’t, but there is leftover crumbed fish and chicken pies. Mmm chicken pies… that would only take a few minutes of prep then I just have to wait for it to cook. Yeah let’s do that. Woohoo dinner sorted. THE END.

Yeah, not the best. The problem is the naughtier you eat the worse you will feel each day. Because it is an evil freaking cycle that we put ourselves into. I will fully admit the fault is mine. I have to figure out a way to cope with this fatigue so that I can exercise and eat healthier, I just have to.

You know it is true!!!

My new job is not far from the mall, one bonus of this is that I can walk to the mall during my hour lunch and buy the stuff I will need for dinner. So I have started doing this. I also try to avoid the naughty rows of the supermarket whilst there. Sometimes I will go with other people so I am guilted into buying the right kinds of things hahaha. Pathetic I know, but it works so well.

I know that I need to overhaul my eating habits again because whilst some of the changes I have made are now habit, I am starting to slip on other ones. Luckily I am not working this weekend so I am hoping I can work on a plan then. I know that pre-planning (and not buying sh*tty food) in the first instance is the best way forward for me. I think I will have to schedule meal planning time of a weekend.

I am also trying to link in my News Years Resolution of trying something new to a healthier lifestyle. Coming soon will be Shepherd’s Pie with cauliflower mash instead of potato and perhaps even making my own hummus – LOVE HUMMUS 🙂

What new things have you tried on your journey to a healthier lifestyle? Good or bad, I would love to hear about it!

52 Books in 52 Weeks – February

Well I got off to a great start in January, 5 books done. This is such a fun challenge! 🙂 After this month I have run our of Belador books so you won’t be hearing about them anymore. I’ll try to vary up the reading moving forward, but sometimes you come across a series and you can’t help but become a bit consumed by it until you finish it and then you get that reader’s remorse happening for you hahaha. Anyone else suffer from reader’s remorse?

6. The Curse (Belador series #3) – Sherrilyn Kenyon & Dianna Love

Yup, more Beladors and let me just say that I was not disappointed. The entrance of Trolls in this book was pretty great, I liked the storyline and loved Evalle doing her hulk impression 🙂 I also really admire her sense of loyalty above all else. These Beladors have treated her horribly, true they treat her better than her aunt did, but for the most part they treat her like dirt. Yet she would lay down her life for any of them, that is the heart of a true warrior in my eyes. The storyline was good. I do feel like these “Gods” and “Goddesses” need a boot to the head. They are just ridiculous. Whenever any of them get involved I feel like I am reading about High School drama. Just craziness. The Goddess Macha in particular could use a time out, she is very strange and I don’t understand her motives in much of this. I am hoping to figure that out soon. Again the amount of action was great, so was the gore… just the right amount of guts 🙂 I loved the further development between Evalle and Storm. I have just really taken a shine to this series 🙂

7. Toxic Heart – Theo Lawrence

Toxic Heart is the second in the series. The first book was “Mystic City” which I really, really liked. So I was pretty excited when the sequel finally came out 🙂 From the cover I expected this book to be a lot about Hunter’s journey, but it really wasn’t. I felt like this book was very much still based around Aria’s evolution. Whilst Hunter’s changes were vast and directly impacted on many people I don’t feel that he was at the core of the novel. I love the character of Aria, a young girl who got herself into this position with the rebels by following her heart and what she truly believes in right. She is owning her decisions and pushing herself, I love that she believes so much in what the right thing is that she will risk anything to achieve it. You can see her slowly developing very naturally into the kind of leader who would do anything for her people. Not that she actually is a leader, but that is my belief of the kind of person who would make a good leader. Hunter lost a lot from me in this book, he just seemed like a lost little boy. Turk was the man in this book, he was humble and good and true and loyal – I mean seriously people what more could you want out of a man. I still love both the first and the second book. To be honest I felt really proud of the Aria character at the end of this book, girl has some guts 🙂

8. Rise of the Gryphon (Belador series #4) – Sherrilyn Kenyon & Dianna Love

The action continues. I was worried that this book was going to finish earlier than it did so it was an awesome surprise when it went on – trying to avoid spoilers, but it was a really good thing you guys 🙂 Macha is still the Goddess of ‘Bitchdom’ and ‘No Chances Land’. This Goddess seems to have something long and cylindrical permanently stuck up her butt. Sen is a jerk as always, I think I have avoided talking about him in the past because I didn’t want to give him any air time, but I think the point of this character might be arising soon. Storm is awesome, Evalle is wonderful – I love the trust these two have. It’s kinda beautiful haha. Lanna is an interesting character, it took me awhile to read her chapters easily because her thoughts are written in broken English which is quite interesting. This book has an awesome ending! So good. I am not entirely sure where I am going to score the 5th one from, but I’ll figure it out haha.

A fabulous bald woman who is all about earrings

* DISCLAIMER: I’m probably going to swear guys, fair warning 🙂 I am a sad panda today.

This morning after a return call from my specialist I was frustrated to the point of almost having a cry, but you can’t do that at work right? So I didn’t. I did that stupid tip your head back so the tears go back in move that you know doesn’t work, but you do it anyways. I am on so many drugs for PCOS & Insulin resistance as well as other crap. Currently I am supposed to be taking the following: Metformin, I-Folate, Vitamin D, Eutroxsig, fish oil. I think that is it, but who knows these days. Now this post is not about the amount of money I spend on medication, it is not about timing my day around said medication… in the paraphrased words of Elle Woods, this is about something that is much more important… my hair!

The specialist prescribed me Eutroxsig in December, he never discussed any possible risks or side effects of the drug with me – which it seems is pretty par for the course these days. So I have been taking it since the end of December. Over the past month I have lost between 30 & 40% of my hair and it’s still falling guys. I used to do my bathroom floors once a week, but since my tiles now resemble shag pile carpet I am having to do it more often. It is bad guys. It was only that the Pharmacist discussed possible side effects of the drug with me that I twigged that it must be that. So I called my specialist and said I wanted to stop taking it, I was told that he felt it was a side effect of the condition and not the drug. I explained that I had had the same condition for many years and this had never happened before. I just got a call back this morning and was told that he still felt it wasn’t the drug, he has asked me to go and get my thyroid re-tested (YAY more money) to see if there is any change and then ask my GP for a referral to a hair loss specialist. A hair loss specialist? What the fuck?! Why do I need to go see yet another doctor for something that wasn’t a problem before I started taking what this guy told me to? Are they trying to send me to a hair loss clinic like Advance Hair or something? I don’t need Shane Warne’s buddies, I just need my hair back. So with this anger/frustration rolling around in my body I decided to put my Research Librarian skills to good use and look up the other possible side effects of the drug. Holy shit you guys, holy shit! There are 70 of them! Granted some are listed as really rare, but still, OMG! Then I realised that I have been having some of the side effects that are listed, I just didn’t pay attention or assumed they were linked to PCOS or IR. Here are some of the things that have been happening:

• Extreme fatigue – I had fatigue already due to PCOS/IR, but over the past two months there are days where I feel capable of nothing.
• Irritability – Only when I am awake. My patience has never been so low. I try very hard to not snap at people, very hard.
• Sweating – Ha, sweating. That’s putting it mildly; I have been creating rivers that no person ever wants to visit.
• Blurred or double vision – this isn’t too bad, but it does explain the random fits of blurriness I seem to get every now and then.
• Headaches – yup they are pretty regular.
• Crying – I feel like crying a lot. A real lot! And not just a delicate single tear rolling down my cheek, I am talking red faced ugly crying here people!
• Hair loss – I feel like I have lost more hair than some people have. Thank god I had uber thick hair to start with or else by now I would be one of those fabulous bald women who is all about her earrings.
• Feeling not well or unhappy (who writes this crap) – this is pretty regular. Over the past two months I am not able to deal with day to day things as easily and effortlessly as I used to. I thought it was my depression rearing its ugly head, which it could be – it certainly feels like the same thing. But it could be this too. I have also been rather paranoid lately, this can be a symptom of depression, but one of the other side effects is ‘Suspicion or distrust’. So who knows.
• Rapidly changing moods – Oh. My. God. YES. All the time! I change moods quicker than I change radio stations when Bieber comes on! It’s bad guys, way worse than normal PMS.

Here’s one that P’d me off good…

• Trouble getting pregnant – Uhhh excuse me? What did you say? My fertility specialist put me on medication whose side effects include ‘trouble getting pregnant’? What the fuck?!

Here’s a couple of the weirder side effects:

• False or unusual sense of well-being – Umm… how would you know if it was false? The only way to test that would be to put yourself in a dangerous situation and see how you felt about it. Jump in a tank of hungry sharks with a bleeding finger and feel as though it is the same as enjoying your morning coffee? Well then… you might have a problem.
• Feeling things are not real – Is this real life??

On top of all this we found out that the debilitating pain my Hubby is getting in his upper back is due to bone spurs growing inwards on his C6 & C7 vertebrae which are then affecting the nerve. Joy. So I don’t know whether the symptoms I have been having over the past couple of months are because of stress or the meds. I don’t know, but I do know I am over it. I have had enough. I just want to crawl into a little me cave for a while. I know I am not someone who usually feels sorry for herself, but right now I am facing a bald, childless existence and I am kinda pissed about it.

Absolutely pissed about it in fact. Side note: pretty sure this post demonstrates that I am not suffering from a ‘false or unusual sense of wellbeing’.