The Best of 2014 is a series of posts in which I talk about a different topic each day this week. Today’s topic will be adaptations. Except today’s post is different. I don’t have a list for you. I’m going to ask what you all think. Because I don’t go to the movies enough to have any idea what the best adaptations of 2014 are.
2014 was no different from other recent calendar years in that there were MANY books adapted into major films. Just a few off the top of my head that were at least fairly well received…Lone Survivor, Gone Girl, Mockingjay Part 1, The Theory of Everything, The Fault in Our Stars, and The Maze Runner. I could have named a lot more, but the point of this post isn’t for me to list out random literary adaptations. I want to know which movies adapted from books you enjoyed this year. Sure there’s an inherent bias if the book happened to be written by an author you like, but who cares.
I have two movies in mind that I think are probably the best movies based on books, but that’s just based on reviews and critics. Y’all may think differently. So tell me, which books adapted into movies did you think stood above the rest in 2014?
PS: Lone Survivor was actually released on Christmas day last year, but it received a wide release in January.
Johnny Reads 
I was really disappointed withe The Maze Runner! But I loved The Fault in Our Stars, Divergent and Mockingjay, 🙂
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Hm. I only saw Mockingjay. I might watch the others once they’re on Netflix.
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I thought Mockingjay was surprisingly good, given that they made the risky (though increasingly common) decision to split it into two parts. Not as much of a fan of Gone Girl, which I thought flattened out a lot of the book’s complexities.
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I thought Mockingjay was good not great. Haven’t even read Gone Girl.
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Gone Girl is the only one that I’ve both read the book and seen the movie. Movie was decent, but as another commenter said, it flattened the story. I rarely say “first person narration is neccessary”, but in that book it really was. Losing the voice inside of Nick’s head made the movie a bit weird. However, the movie did fix some plotholes from the book.
I adored the Maze Runner movie. Trying to read the book now, but the writing is very hard to slug through. Perhaps it will get better, but so far I think it was better fit for the screen. The story is strong – it’s just not eloquent.
Someone told me Lone Survivor is even better than Saving Private Ryan, so I may check that out sometime.
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