Anybody who’s spent more than five minutes on “Book Tok” has probably witnessed an immense amount of snobbery, gatekeeping, and egotism. Us book readers like to think we’re better than others because while some teen agers spend their time on Netflix or browsing the never-ending chasm of social media, we sit in our rooms and flip through the pages of a good (or often not-so-good) book. This isn’t to say we aren’t better than non-book readers; I’m not shy to admit that my reading has given me a bit of an inflated ego. This is me simply calling out just how pretentious we book readers can be. One hot debate in the book reader community is whether or not the movie adaptation can be as good or better than the book. Numerous readers, including 95 percent of “BookTokkers,” scoff at those who watch popular movies like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter without reading the books. For many years, I was part of that 95 percent. However, I had a recent revelation that I began sharing in a series of videos on my Close Friends Insta gram story and eventually decided to take to an article, as I need ed an outlet for this topic which can’t seem to leave my head.
I will admit, if I catch someone watching the Harry Potter movies without having read all of the books, I will most likely make a snide comment about it. However, through my last elev en years as a self-certified book nerd, my opinion on the accept ability of this has shifted. There are certainly movies based on books which would be preposterous to watch without reading the book, such as Harry Potter. Come on, what was your childhood if you didn’t spend long car rides glued to those books, full of magic and endless possibilities? There are movies that are abso lutely horrible compared to the books, and watching them made me quite angry (cough cough, Percy Jackson).
Acknowledging that, there are definitely books I have come across that I felt very little passion for and was only able to really enjoy after building a deeper connection with the characters, setting, and plot. Let’s take Pride and Prejudice as an example. I won’t lie, the book took me weeks to read (compared to my usual average of about three hours per book). I wanted to enjoy the book so much, and although I adore Austen’s wit and writing style, reading dense books like that can get tiring very quickly. When I did finish it, I watched the 2005 version of the movie, and only then did I truly appreciate the characters Austen had created. I’m sure I would have suffered much less through those 408 pages if I had already seen Keira Knightley’s perfect por trayal of an already amazing character, Lizzy Bennet. As much as we don’t like to admit this, there are lots of books people read simply to say they have read them. I can’t say I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice all that much; I think I enjoyed the feeling of pre tentiousness I was allowed to have after reading the last word in the book. I’d say that’s the case for many so-called “classics.” We want to enjoy them, but often they’re quite miserable to finish.
Let’s return to my central focus: the book vs. movie debate, one that has most likely lasted since the beginning of cinema ad aptations of novels. What I was trying to really get across during my little tangent about Pride and Prejudice is that some books aren’t exceptional and need the boost of some good filmmaking to really make an imprint. For people like me who struggle with visualization, movies are a helpful way for me to form a connec tion with the characters before beginning the book. It’s pretty hard to read hundreds of pages about a character you can’t even picture or hear in your head. Movies bring characters to life in a way books have never been able to do for a person like myself.
Let’s examine another example: The Perks of Being a Wall flower. This is one of my all-time favorite reads, but I don’t think the book measures up to the movie. I watched the movie on my mother’s bed one summer a few years back, and read the book in Ms. Deverin’s 9th grade English class. Although books can and do leave a profound impact on a person, sometimes seeing the scenes play out in front of your eyes can do so much more. The famous “Tunnel Scene” in Perks is one I enjoyed in both the book and movie, but is it even possible to argue that those few paragraphs in the book can compare to Emma Watson’s performance, her hair blowing and the look of love in Charlie’s (Logan Lerman’s) eyes as Heroes by David Bowie blasts in the background? That scene was a cinematic masterpiece. Of course, that’s not to detract from the book—it was so well-written and pulled me in every time I sat down to read. However, there are cases in which the movie is better, and I’m sick of pretending this isn’t true (because if I said it was, I would have hundreds of 15-year-olds screeching at me in comment sections and DMs).
Movie adaptations often stray from the plot of the book and receive endless criticism for it, but I’m here to challenge the idea that the rating of a movie should be based on how well it copies the plot of the book it’s based on. For me, the most important part of a movie/show adaptation is capturing the dynamics and personalities of the characters. It can be incredibly mind-numb ing to watch a word-for-word replay of the book. One example that always comes to mind is Little Women (2019) and the radically different ending in the movie versus the book. At first, watching that ending annoyed me because it hadn’t stayed true to the plot of the book. However, I would argue the movie is no worse (perhaps even better) than the book because of how wonderfully Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet portrayed the characters of Jo and Laurie. Although the director took some creative freedom and changed parts of the plot, the characters were exactly how I had pictured them in my head.
The constant hate on movie adaptations by pretentious teen agers online is irritating, and I resent the idea that “the book is always better.” That’s simply not true, and you aren’t any less of a book reader if you enjoy a movie more than its corresponding book. Well, you heard it here first, folks: a movie can be better than the book it was based on. It’s okay to watch a movie without reading the book, or to watch the movie first to form a genuine connection with the characters before jumping into hundreds of pages that may not even be interesting. You can appreciate literature and simultaneously appreciate how movies can portray ideas that were once just words on a page.