Book Reviews : Books to read before you see the movie.

On January 23^rd I attended the Penguin Showcase in Sydney that featured the advance screening of Love Simon. I wrote my first blog post on my favourite LGBT+ protagonists and Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda is one of my most favourite novels. I know he’s fictional but Simon feels like a dear friend.  The movie was honestly the funniest movie I have ever seen in my entire life and I still cried three times. It really felt like everyone who worked on the film gave it everything they had to make a beautiful movie that was true to the novel.  I insist everyone goes and sees it when it hits cinemas this month. Here is a list of books that will also be hitting cinemas in 2018. It includes a beautiful love story featuring beautiful people, a lot of crazy wealthy Asian socialites attending a $40 million lavish wedding and a maybe demon possessing the bodies of 16 year olds. I also included a review of a book that was being produced into a movie but was cut because Harvey Weinstein is human garbage. Every book on this list is a stand out and lets pray the movies stay true to the novels.

1. Midnight Sun by Trish Cook. 

A much better love story than Twilight. Get it? Because a Twilight book was called Midnight Sun? Okay I'll see myself out. This Midnight Sun is beautiful, heart wrenching and every single character are firmly in my heart. I couldn’t put the book down and finished it at lightning speed. As soon as I finished I cried and messaged my loved ones just to let them know how much they all mean to me.

Midnight Sun follows the life of Katie, an 18-year-old girl with an illness called XP that basically means she is allergic to the sun. Katie sleeps all day and stays up all night. Katie loves writing songs, playing her guitar and sitting by her window while watching a gorgeous boy walk by her house. Katie has been watching Charlie since she was a little girl and it's not as creepy as it sounds! One night while Katie is out at the train station playing her guitar and singing her heart out, Charlie turns up and here starts a perfect love story. 

If you loved Everything Everything by Nicole Yoon as much as I did you will love this (here's my review on Everything Everything) What I like about Katie is that she is hilariously awkward and her one-liners are great. Charlie is the perfect all American nice guy athlete.  The movie is being released in the USA late March but no news yet when Australia will get the movie. The gorgeous Bella Thorne is playing Katie and Patrick Schwarzenegger, the son of Arnold Schwarzenegger, is playing Charlie. Here is the trailer for Midnight Sun. If you can’t wait for the release of Midnight Sun then Japan made a movie in 2006, which I need to go find right now.

2. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

This book was perfection. It was full of culture, evil schemes, some occasional slap downs of racist peasants, opulent mansions, luxurious couture gowns and delicious food. This novel is an Asian Pride & Prejudice combined with a sophisticated version of Gossip Girl or The O.C. I was laughing and gasping throughout this novel filled with beautiful scenery, lots of twists constructed by villainous people and a few wonderful characters you really start to adore.

Chinese American Rachel Chu is an accomplished economics professor who has been dating her handsome, sweet boyfriend Nick Young for the past two years when he asks her on a vacation to Singapore to attend his best friend’s wedding. Rachel’s mother and friends believe a proposal is coming but Rachel is just excited about a vacation with the man she loves. What Rachel doesn’t know is that Nick belongs to one of the most influential and wealthy families in all of Asia. Nick’s family is full of the usual suspects - nosy aunts, an overbearing mother, an intimidating grandmother, pretentious uncles and one ridiculously cool cousin called Astrid. In a world where families of ‘old money’ wont even accept families of ‘new money’ how can someone like Rachel, who is the child of a hard-working single mother, ever be accepted?

This novel explores the issues facing the 1% of the elite and the dynamics of family. The chapters swap and change through stories and at times I was almost tempted to skip ahead just to get closure from the last storyline. I was up till the early hours attempting to soak in as much as I can of this scandalous read only ever putting it down if I had to catch my breath cause the last twist made my head spin.

The movie features Constance Wu, Henry Golding and an entire Asian cast of insanely good looking actors. The movie is scheduled for release in August in the United States. Here’s a link to an interview of the stars about the making of the film.

3. Every Day by David Levithan. 

For the purpose of this post I'm going to use gender neutral pronouns for the protagonist for reasons that will be explained..... No it's not what you think. Also all examples have been made up by me in the interest of avoiding spoilers but rest assured the real story is just as intriguing.  

Imagine waking up into the body of a sex trafficking victim, or a drug dealer, or an Olympic swimmer, a girl being beat up by her father, a boy living in a cult, a white supremacist, a drag queen, a bullied nerd, a teenager pop star, someone of a different culture or religion to you or any other number of possibilities. Rich, poor, male, female, popular, lonely, beautiful, invisible. This is the life of A. A is a soul without a body and without a gender. A has a personality and dreams. Every day they wake up possessing the body of another. The only constant is the age and location. As A ages A inhabits the bodies of people of their age and within a six hour radius. A is 16 and every day A is possessing the body of another 16 year old. Then one day A falls in love with the kind girlfriend of a mean boy he is possessing. Rhiannon becomes A's main focus but is love possible when every day you are someone else?

This book is as exciting as it is scary. Every day is a new story and a new life. Getting small glimpses into the lives of the people around us. I woke up yesterday and I started imaging how A would feel if they were me for the day. Would A know I jump the fence every morning to feed my neighbour’s sheep? Would A fall in love with my perfect boyfriend? Would A feel relief that I have a sweet mother? This book helps you to appreciate every day and everyone you get to keep in your life every day. It’s also interesting to imagine the lives of strangers, what are their struggles? How can we make our life count for something? While reading this book I found myself more invested in the storylines of the humans than of A. Maybe it is simply hard to care about the love story of a maybe demon that is possessing the bodies of humans but I found my imagination just ran wild thinking of the lives of the strangers around me. With that said this book was wonderful because every new page was an adventure within a new story, I was never bored reading it.

The movie stars Angourie Rice as Rhiannon and is set to be released in Australia early April. Here's the trailer. 

4. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Channing Tatum was set to direct the film adaption when it was put on halt indefinitely due to the fact Harvey Weinstein was the producer. This man had no business telling any stories yet alone a story about the aftermath of sexual assault. Here is a story by Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook, the movie adaption won Jennifer Lawerence an Oscar. This would of also made an incredible movie and I’m sorry we all don’t get to see it.

Leonard plans to commit suicide but he has some tasks to do and people to say goodbye to before he decides to leave. One of them tasks is to kill Asher Beal. Like all teenage boys who takes a gun to school, Leonard is selfish and complicated. He wants to be remembered, he wants to cause pain and he wants his pain to end. Discovering the life of someone attempting, or not attempting, to survive the aftermath of trauma is insightful. So many emotions develop when reading this novel; anger was a big one for me. I am outrage Leonard didn’t receive the help he needed.

My favourite element about this novel is the various supporting characters. My favourite stand out character is Herr Silverman, the Holocaust history teacher at Leonard’s school. He’s one of them rare, inspiring and thoughtful teachers we have in high school that we never forget for the rest of our lives. Listening to his wisdom and wit was the highlight of this novel.

We may never get to the see the film adaption of this novel but please read the book because Mathew Quick is a phenomenal writer.

So many movies I am looking forward to this year. May we continue seeing stories that are diverse and create more empathy amongst us.