Reading Challenge - #1. Bridge to Terabithia

Well, the first book I chose from my list was, as the title says, Bridge to Terabitha by Katherine Paterson. It follows the building of a friendship between Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke, the two main characters.

Overall, the book was good, but not what I expected. Of course, it was well below my reading level as it is a children's book, making the language really simple, a bit disjointed and a little boring in parts. The build-up to the climax took a really long time and didn't arrive until the third last chapter. Not a usual outline for a children's book. Due to this, I found the resolution very quick and a little lacking, although the ending was cute.

I also decided, because Bridge to Terabithia was made into a movie, that I would watch it too and make a comparison.

First, the book was published in 1977 and the movie made in 2007. So thirty years. The book is set in the 1960s from what I could gather, but the movie is in the modern age because electronics and the internet are brought up. It works, but I think the original time period should have been kept. It keeps pretty true to the novel, however I found it focused a lot more on the imagination and creatures of Terabithia than it did on the relationship between the two main characters. The book took more time developing their friendship than the movie. The movie also takes place over a shorter time frame than the book too. Which likely hindered the relationship development. Jess deals with the climax differently between novel vs movie as well. To which I liked the way the book handled it better. The ending was still just as cute.

I'm sure these posts will get better as I read and write about more books from my list.

Fall & Winter 2017/2018 Reading Challenge... Of sorts.

My husband complains that I buy all these books for my library and never read them. And I can atest, this is true. So, the other night, I went through my whole collection, took out a bunch and set them aside to start reading.

The plan is not to read them all (that is a bit too ambitious for me), but to read as many as I can between now and April of 2018. I will write a little review/completion post on here every time I finish a book. My thoughts, feelings, whether I liked it, etc.

List is as follows (in no particular order):

1. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
2. Vanity Fair by William Thackery
3. The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
4. Transcendental by James Gunn
5. Quintessence by David Walton
6. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
7. Moth and Spark by Anne Leonard
8. The Waking Engine by David Edison
9. The Green Rider Series by Kristin Britain (Recommended by Rebecca.) **Note: 6 books in total**
10. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
11. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
13. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
15. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
16. Animal Farm by George Orwell
17. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
18. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
19. 1984 by George Orwell
20. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
21. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
22. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
23. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
24. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
25. One Day by David Nicholls
26. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
27. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
28. The Last Ship by William Brinkley
29. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
30. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
31. What's Eating Gilbert Grape? by Peter Hedges
32. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
33. T2 (Trainspotting 2) by Irvine Welsh
34. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
35. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
36. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
37. Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy
38. The Secret Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
39. The Once & Future King by T.H. White 

Wish me luck!