Although it’s been a long old month, finding the time (or money, or motivation)to do anything in August has been tricky – hence the lack of writing. BUT, I’m (sort of) back on track, and getting into the swing of being a functioning human being again.
This month, I tried my very best to read a whole book, but as I said, I’ve been struggling to motivate myself to do anything except watch Parks and Rec and eat cheese. Turns out, the book I chose to try and tackle didn’t exactly help…
You might remember I went to see My Cousin Rachel a while back. If you read my blog on it, you might also remember, I promised to read the book to compare, as well as to salvage any literary magic that the movie might have left out (as they so often do).
So with my hopes high, I set about reading My Cousin Rachel . I’d love to say I finished it, and it was great, but I’m no liar. Truth be told, I got about half way before calling it quits. Why?
Well, because even though I hated the characters in the movie, at least they had some kind of substance/ personality/ backbone. Book Phillip is not the spoilt, arrogrant brat he is onscreen. Instead he’s the worst kind of person – whiny and useless. A wet flannel. Seeing as he’s the narrator and all, this gets tiring pretty quick.
If that wasn’t enough, I was expecting some edge-of-my-seat suspense. It says on the cover, “a masterpiece of tension”. I don’t know if it’s just because I was semi familiar with the story or what but there was zero tension, in my opinion. That’s if you exclude my strong urge to slap all the characters in the face.
I tried my best with this one, but sometimes it’s just not meant to be. I’d even go so far to say that this is one of the rare instances the movie was actually better than the book (don’t hate me, book lovers). Sorry Daphne, but I think I’ll stick to The Birds .
Just Emma Things 