Category: musings

book vs movie, musings, YA

Book vs. Movie: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Come on, right? I just had to pit the book and the movie together, especially after the huge amount of hype that came out when it popped up on Netflix in August.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Jenny Han fan. I was fortunate enough to have met her in person, but few actually know that this book is the direct cause for this whole blog. I absolutely ADORED this book so of course I watched the movie on the very first day that it came out.

BOOK
MOVIE

But first things first, a little dive into the synopsis (for those of you who have absolutely no idea what this book is about).

 

Synopsis:

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

All right, who doesn’t love a cute little synopsis like that? I mean, I even got some of my male friends to watch it with me so that really says something.

Below, I’m going to list out some of the things I loved and didn’t love about both the book and the movie. Pitting them together, which one would win out?

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Pros for the book:

  • the lush culture of the Song family is very thoroughly explored, pretty much an integral part of the book as much as the central romance
  • steady pacing to get to know all the different characters, particularly the other Song sisters Margot and Kitty
  • understanding more of the backstory behind Peter, one potential love interest, and his ex that causes problems with Lara Jean

Cons for the book:

  • um, I mean, I kind of rated it a 5 star novel so I’m not sure I have too many things to say badly about it

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Pros for the movie:

  • the casting was really well-done, especially with Lana Condor playing the lead role as Lara Jean, and followed the book quite closely
  • excellent acting really helped embody the heart of certain characters (e.g. Anna Cathart as Kitty)

 

Cons for the movie:

  • fast pacing, particularly near the middle, with months literally flying by in seconds and it feels like we don’t really get to spend much time with Lara Jean and the boys she’s dealing with
  • not a huge focus on the Korean culture and traditions that the Song family holds onto even though their mother died – seemed like it could’ve been any other generic American family except that they look Asian

As the credits were rolling and I was sitting there wondering what just happened, I must admit that I didn’t love the movie as much as I had hoped. My friends (who never read the book before) liked it well enough but there was something in me that just wasn’t satisfied. A cameo of Jenny Han was wonderful, and the chemistry between the leads Lana Condor (Lara Jean) and Noah Centineo (Peter Kavinsky) was tangible, yet my heart wished it was longer and developed a couple things more that the book did really well.

I may be the odd person who can’t say they LOVED the movie, but to me, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before as the book wins. Granted, not much could really displace the love I have for this novel in its own very special place in my heart.

If you want to know just how I felt for this book, check out my review for it as well!

So what do you think? If you watched the movie and read the book, which one did you think was better? Or were they tied as they both did amazing in different ways for the same story?

musings

The Last Time I’ll Write About You by Dawn Lanuza

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Have you ever felt that someone is just stuck in your mind long after their last steps have taken them walking out of your life?

Have you struggled with letting go of something that may have been toxic, that may have been a complete and TOTAL mess? I mean, you’re better off now. Right?

Have you found yourself reminiscing over all the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens? Are you stuck there? Or have you convinced yourself that you’re no LONGER there?

the last time i'll write about you -dawn lanuza

The Last Time I’ll Write About You resonated with me for that reason as I happen to know what all that felt like.

Love can be a wonderful experience, an emotional connection that takes us to the highest mountains and fills our heart and lungs with the elixir of life.

And yet, love can also be a very complicated thing. Another entire being that can dictate how we view the world, how we interact with it.

Breakups can be so messy because of this. It leaves us vulnerable. Wanting to close in again. And if you’re the one with the heart broken, anything can remind us of that person. Anything.

Dawn Lanuza pens a series of poems that speak to personal experience of such things. While a little rudimentary in style compared to other poets I’ve been reading lately, I think it’s still a collection worth browsing through.

For some people (including me), writing is cathartic. It’s like we have permission to feel the things we do once we pen it all down from our very cramped hearts onto paper (or a screen). And once it’s out there, it hopefully frees up some space inside the 4 chambers of our hearts to start healing.

For some other people, it’s cathartic to know that someone else understands what and how we feel. That we’re not alone in our feelings. That it is okay to be feeling this way. We’re not broken and weak. We’re just human.

This book reminded me of these things. That it’s okay to find it hard to let go sometimes. That it’s not just me who was dumb enough to hold onto something that was never meant to be.

Maybe it can do the same for you.

What resonated the most with me were these 2 poems that I’ll share with you.

1) sometimes the world around us may be reminders of that person in our life – and that’s okay

THE WORLD IS OUR SOUVENIR

The world remembers
What we try to forget
It’s in the embers
Of the things we left

It’s in the concrete,
The streets we used to tread
In the halls we used to meet
When we had hours to spend

It’s in the book you carried home
In this umbrella we shared
It’s in the stars you wished on
In your skin, your palms,
Your fingers: playing with my hair

It’s in your unmade bed
The wrinkle, the weight
It’s in the distance to the door I traveled
In the silence, partings unsaid.

2) hope that we can love again – and love again BETTER

EPILOGUE

Despite everything
I still thank the universe
For blessing me with you
As my first

If I could love you this much
For this long
– And on my first try –
Then surely,

I could love someone else more
Far better
Far longer.

I hope this finds you well in a moment where you may need the encouragement, the hope, that love can come again. Maybe even in a better form. It took me years to get out of this slump, and years where I denied the fact that it still held my heart captive in some ways.

But the freeing feeling of crying over that last poem showed me that maybe those last dredges are gone, and in the meantime, I have learned a lot more about myself through it all.

So whether you needed this encouragement or not, I ask of you today: what is love? And does it have a place in your future?

musings, YA

Musings on Love, Simon

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

A week ago, I had the pleasure of going with a friend to see a greatly anticipated movie based on a hit novel that shook the YA community a few years ago. I’m sure you can probably guess what this movie was – aside from the title of this review that totally gives it away, right?

Yes, it has to be Love, Simon based on Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. And for a blogger who sadly hasn’t finished the whole book (I know, right??), I still chose to watch it.

And it shook me. Absolutely shook me.

I don’t do movie reviews. There’s no time and place for that in my life. I watch things to just zone out and enjoy for the sake of it. I rarely have many bad things to say about what I watch as the whole purpose of going out and choosing this movie to watch suggests it was of some interest to me in the first place.

Yet, I find myself needing to write my thoughts out here. Even after more than a week since I saw the credits roll, something lingers.

Love, Simon was carefully crafted in who they chose as their protagonists and with great timing as Simon’s story moved along. Nick Robinson as Simon Spier surprisingly was perfect. I wasn’t sure initially as I’ve watched plenty of other movies Nick’s been involved in. But there’s something just right about his played-out inner fears, stoic outer charisma, and narrative voice that easily drew out empathy or sympathy from the audience. The secondary supporting characters were also really well chosen. From the hilarious Spier family – starring some familiar and big names like Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Garner – to the best friend, Leah (whom I cannot unsee as the infamous Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why, can you?), I think the movie had already made it to the point of halfway decent by choosing the right cast for the story.

What truly carried this movie for me was the amount of empathy I felt towards Simon. I will admit that I haven’t dived in much into the world of LGBTQ stories – whether in YA or any other genre really – but this felt like a good place to start. I have friends who are same-sex attracted and that is just who they are. Without getting into any arguments of specific beliefs, I know at the end of the day that I love these people in my life very much, and romantic love does not make life easy at all.

While you may know how the story ends for Simon and his anonymous exchanger-of-emails friend, I sat in the theatre for a moment just processing it all. The lights came back on, the few groups who watched it with us started trickling out of their seats, and my friend was sniffling at the happy ending. Love had triumphed after all. This was great! Absolutely heartwarming, right?

Yet, sitting there, eyes unseeing as the credits moved on the screen, it made me contemplative. Maybe it’s just where I am in life right now but how often does life reflect what we read and see on a screen? Sometimes I wish I was a protagonist who could flip to the end of the book and see how it all turned out. Sometimes I wished I could control more clearly what would happen. But just as an author controls what would come next for our favourite protagonists, life is the exact same way. We don’t always get to choose what comes our way. We’re just fooling ourselves with how much we truly control in our own life.

Reflecting on these things, it felt both relieving and sad at the same time. Simon got his happy ending – although he almost could have not, really, as it was ultimately up to Blue to change the course of what happened next for Simon – but do we all?

Love is a fickle thing. Do we choose who we want to love? Or does it choose us?

I think that’s what I connected most with Simon. That inability to control what we feel at times, and the inner torment it can play out on us. And while not all of us can fully empathize with the hardships that the LGBTQ community goes through with regards to love, I think this movie had something in it that reached out and made me empathize anyway. That is a true mark of a good story.

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