Movie: The Fault in Our Stars

This movie was pretty good.  It definitely followed the book pretty well (entire sections of dialogue were exactly the same), but I still enjoyed the book better.  That might be partially because I read the book first and could be surprised by the plot when I read it.  Sometimes I feel like I ruin movies for myself by reading the book first.. but a book takes longer to read than a movie takes to watch- so I'd still rather ruin the movie than the book.

Movie: The Book Thief

I saw the movie The Book Thief, and it was so much better than I expected!  I absolutely loved the book, so I was prepared to be disappointed by the movie.  There were a few differences (it didn't show the scenes of Liesel and Rudy stealing food, a few secondary characters were eliminated- like Hans and Rosa's children, and in the movie Rosa was toned down quite a bit).  But, the changes made sense.  In a movie there just isn't enough time to develop characters the way there is in a book, and by toning down Rosa's character (and eliminating a scene when Hans was hard on Liesel), it kept those characters truer to who they really are in the book.  Death was still the narrator, but he only interjected a couple of times, and I thought the casting decisions were fantastic.  Hans was lovable; Liesel was complex; Rudy was adorable.  It's definitely a movie I'd watch again!