I finished The Last Olympian on Saturday, and was really excited to see the movie a few days later…I ended up seeing the Percy Jackson movie on Monday; and honestly, I have to say I was rather disappointed. I hate when movies needlessly change plots and characters in beloved books. And in this case, the changes weren’t necessary and didn’t do anything to improve the story (or in this case, the movie). Like, for instance, they completely left Clarisse COMPLETELY. And any mention of Ares (one of my favorite gods in the book series). They also made Percy 16 in the first movie, instead of 12. Introduced a love interest in Annabeth almost immediately and threw out a lot of (usual) back story/mythology Riordan created about the gods (Poseidon in Bermuda shorts for instance)/their relationships with their children/the gods dropping in and “helping” Percy, Annabeth, and Grover along the way. AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON LUKE. I thought one of the greatest strengths of the The Lightning Thief was the surprising reveal, near the very end of the book, that Luke was evil. The tarantula scene still haunts me, particularly because this was a boy who Percy trusted and who he considered a friend. None of that relationship was built up in the movie, and Luke ended up coming off like a spoiled pouty child having a temper tantrum.
Okay. End rant.
Have you guys had a chance to check out the new YA books? What have you been particularly enjoying? I started Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater and have been really enjoying it. It’s nice to see a wolf not in competition with a vampire. I’ve been anxiously waiting for The Dark Divine to come back in, as I’m really excited to read that.
Speaking of Shiver, the movie version now has a writer attached to pen the script. And in other movie news, Scott Westerfeld’s Uglie series is being made into movies too. New broke last summer that the series would be made into movies, but in the months following no progress was made. Now however, Screen Gems has fast tracked the a film version of the series. Anyone fans of the Uglies series? I tried to read Pretties but just couldn’t get into it. Should I give the series another try?
TEEN SPACE 
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