Posts tagged with melodrama
SOAPTASTIC
I feel like the blog has been heavy on the melodrama this week, but here's one more: if you're a fan of webtoons, the popular series Marry My Husband just posted its series finale. It is super soapy, with a magical second chance-at-life premise...
Eh, maybe
This movie adaptation of Iain Reid's 2019 novel Foe looks like a modern, big-budget Twilight Zone episode. Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal are both pretty buzzy young actors, so I'm assuming they wouldn't sign up for something terrible, but I'm...
This looks enjoyably trashy
I've been bombarded by trailers for Amazon's adaptation of B.E. Jones's novel Wilderness, which I must admit looks delightfully soapy, down to the hilariously impractical little dress the main actress appears to be wearing to go for a massive hike. Also, A+ use of that Taylor Swift song...
They have deadlines to meet, too
According to the website Celebitchy, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have purchased the rights to Carley Fortune’s romantic melodrama Meet Me at the Lake, which they intend to turn in to a movie for Netflix...
65+ melodrama
I just saw the trailer for The Good Liar, a new film (based on a book of the same name by Nicholas Searle) starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen. I definitely want to support movies starring older actors that aren't about them facing imminent death...
The Royal We, by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
When it comes to royalty-themed entertainment, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan's novel The Royal We is more realistic than the many princess-y Hallmark movies, more grown-up than Rachel Hawkins' Royals, and grander in scope than Meg Cabot's effervescent Princess Diaries—but it isn't quite perfect...
Nothing new under the sun
According to Collider, HBO has given a straight-to-series order for a TV show adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, to be produced by Doctor Who and Sherlock showrunner Steven Moffat. The book was already adapted for film in 2003, but...
Suppressed passion... and bees
Variety informs me that Anna Paquin will star in a movie adaptation of Fiona Shaw's 2009 novel Tell It To The Bees. According to the article, the story is set in the 1950s, and Paquin will play a doctor who returns to her hometown to take over her late father’s medical practice. Her situation grows complicated when...
The Goal, by Elle Kennedy
Earlier this year, we reviewed the first three books in Elle Kennedy's Off-Campus series, a collection of New Adult romances set in the college hockey world. The final book in the quartet, The Goal, has recently been released, and it has just as much easy charm as its predecessors...
A Song For Ella Grey, by David Almond
David Almond's A Song For Ella Grey is a young adult re-telling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in modern-day Northumberland and starring a bunch of small-town emo kids. The story is told from the point of view of a girl named Claire. Claire is obsessively devoted to her friend Ella, but when a mysterious boy with a beautiful singing voice appears, Ella instantly falls in love with him...
Weekly Book Giveaway: A Song for Ella Grey, by David Almond
his week's Book Giveaway is David Almond's young adult novel A Song For Ella Grey. I'm having a bit of trouble imagining how a teen re-telling of Orpheus and Eurydice (which I'm assuming this book is) will work, but that cover art is simply too gorgeous to pass up...
The Serpent King, by Jeff Zentner
Jeff Zentner's debut book The Serpent King reminds me of a teen-friendly version of Grace Metalious's infamous novel Peyton Place. Both stories feature small-town settings, twisted family lives, and dark secrets, but Zentner's book is approximately 1,000,000 times better-written...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Serpent King, by Jeff Zentner
This week's Book Giveaway is Jeff Zentner's debut novel The Serpent King, which I chose based on its attractively gritty cover art and my mother's recommendation. (She has a terrible habit of reading the last chapter of books first, and assures me that Mr. Zentner's book ends really well.) A full review will follow later today...
The Secret Ingredient, by Stewart Lewis
Stewart Lewis's The Secret Ingredient has a great cover, a great hook, and the foundations of at least two—maybe more—great YA novels. Unfortunately, he seems incapable of delivering on any of that promise, and once again produces a book that is simultaneously overly dramatic and underdeveloped...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Cake House, by Latifah Salom
This week's Book Giveaway is The Cake House, the debut novel by Latifah Salom. Based on the description on the back cover, I'm assuming that we're continuing our recent (and totally unintentional!) string of Shakespearean updates: this appears to be a modern retelling of Hamlet...
The Year of Luminous Love and The Year of Chasing Dreams, by Lurlene McDaniel
Lurlene McDaniel's novels The Year of Luminous Love and The Year of Chasing Dreams boast more melodrama than a Mexican telenovela. These books have everything: natural disasters! Forbidden love! Lingering illnesses! Birth secrets! Personally, I felt like I was trapped in an interminable game of “Pin the tail on the soap opera cliché”, but...
The Bodies We Wear, by Jeyn Roberts
Jeyn Roberts's The Bodies We Wear is the kind of book I normally avoid. I'm not a big fan of gothic melodramas, so I was surprised to discover that this novel spoke to the same part of me that enjoys the Underworld films. The Bodies We Wear might lack vampires and shiny pleather catsuits, but, like Underworld, it takes its goofy gothic premise 100% seriously, and I find that endearing...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Bodies We Wear, by Jeyn Roberts
This week's Book Giveaway pick is The Bodies We Wear, by Jeyn Roberts. The cover is graced with the tagline "Revenge Will Be Hers" and the plot seems to hinge upon a teen girl's attempt to get even with the people who forced her into drug addiction as a child, so I'm expecting hardcore DRAMA. Our review will be posted later today...
We Are The Goldens, by Dana Reinhardt
Reading Dana Reinhardt's We Are The Goldens is an exercise in appreciating process rather than product. It's thoughtful and well-written, but if you're hoping for a tidy, satisfying conclusion you're doomed to disappointment...
That is some very elegant dirt.
And in more highbrow movie-adaptation news (although, one could argue that the two stories have an equally melodramatic worldview), the first posters for Justin Kurzel's upcoming movie version of Macbeth have been posted on IndieWire...
Ugh, no thank you.
Personally, I wouldn't trust Lost writer Damon Lindelof any further than I could throw him (and I have no upper-body strength), but HBO appears to have a lot more confidence in his abilities. Word & Film has just posted the first full-length trailer for Lindelof's upcoming adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel The Leftovers...
Yet more crying at the movies this summer
The trailer is out for the upcoming adaptation of Gayle Forman's 2009 YA novel If I Stay. I considered reviewing it, but I'm not into tearjerkers, and the allure of the central question (would the comatose heroine choose to survive, or join her family in death?) was somewhat lessened by the fact that I heard there was going to be a sequel...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Mirk and Midnight Hour, by Jane Nickerson
This week's Book Giveaway title is The Mirk and Midnight Hour, the second YA novel from Jane Nickerson. Like her first book Strands of Bronze and Gold (which we reviewed here), The Mirk and Midnight Hour is inspired by a not-exactly-Disney-friendly fairytale: the Scottish ballad Tam Lin...
Season of the Witch, by Mariah Fredericks
Mariah Fredericks's Season of the Witch hopes for the literary equivalent of having one's cake and eating it too: the author tries to lure in readers with fantasy/horror stuff, but she also wants her story to be taken seriously as a real-world exploration of grief, revenge, and teenage power dynamics. I wish she had committed to one approach or the other, although the resulting mash-up is still remarkably entertaining...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Season of the Witch, by Mariah Fredericks
This week's Book Giveaway is Mariah Fredericks's Season of the Witch, which I'm told is a psychological thriller set in an exclusive New York prep school, not a supernatural romance. (I enjoy the way the cover art is purposefully vague, presumably in an effort to attract both audiences.) Our review will go up later today...
Love Me, by Rachel Shukert
Rachel Shukert's YA novel Starstruck was one of my favorite books of 2013. Smart and compulsively readable, it managed to transform the basic plot of Jacqueline Susann's deadly dull Valley of the Dolls into a deliciously juicy soap opera about three girls struggling to make it big during the Golden Age of Hollywood...
Sacred and Splendor, by Elana K. Arnold
Sacred and Splendor, the first two novels from YA author Elana K. Arnold, are ambitious, creative... and totally devoid of editorial judgment or restraint. The books contain a number of intriguing ideas, but the sum total is a hot mess...