Novel 2009

The Book VS The Movie - The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees is a book however it is also a movie who is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and the book is written by Sue Monk Kidd. The book was published in 2003 and the movie in October 2008.
As known the book is about a girl who is 14 years old, she is named Lily Melissa Owens, she lost her mother when she was 4. She shot her mother by accident as her mother Deborah and her Father T.Ray where fighting. Anyways, the book goes on and we get to meet different people and get to read about Rosaleen (T.Ray and Lily’s housekeeper) and Lily’s journey and how they get through tough problems in their life.

I like the book and the movie in different ways, the book is very well written and it contains a lot of different feelings and emotions. In the book you can create the looks of the characters as you wish and after the descriptions in the book, however in the movie the people are picked out and it might not be as you imagined still I like the people they picked out for the different characters, and the actors play their part well. This is one of the reasons I like the movie very much, the feeling you get and the connection you have with the characters after reading the book gets more alive while watching the movie. I feel that the actor Dekoda Fanning who plays Lily in the movie plays her part excellent I really imaged Lily looking and acting like her. Many people will not agree with me but this is my point of view and I’m very satisfied with her part in the movie and as mentioned the other actors.
Even though many scenes are cut out in the movie we can see the whole picture and the meaning of the book. As most times there are things that happens in the book that we think is important that aren’t in the movie, still the movie would either be to long or messy if it was line by line. However, after you have read a book you get close to the characters as I mentioned I did. You get to read about their thoughts, their emotions and their view of things in daily life bases. So, when the movie is made and you know almost everything about the characters and the story you set your expectations on a level, it might be high or even low, still they are expectations. This makes it hard for whoever is producing the movie to fur fill every single expectation. People view the movie and the book in different ways and thinks of the different people in different ways and these are the reasons to why some might love the movie and hate the book or opposite.

The feelings and the emotions that are in the book are so deep and clean and well explained, and while watching the movie we can see them personally and not just read about them. After telling you about how much I think that the actors play their parts well you can guess that they also carry the emotions over on the screen perfectly. I cant decide what the main topic is in the book or even in the movie, there are so many themes. Love, forgiveness, courage, hate. The hole movie and the book is filled with love, the love they have for one another like Lily for Rosaleen, August, May and even June and opposite. And then there is forgiveness, Lily who needs to forgive T. Ray for being such and awful father toward her. August, May and June needing to forgive Rosaleen and Lily for lying about why they needed a place to stay. Neil forgiving June for not wanting to marry him, August, June, Rosaleen and Lily needed to forgive May for her suicide etc. Courage is also a big part in both the movie and the book, Rosaleen shows courage when she stands up against the white men when they make fun of her, Lily having the courage to break Rosaleen out of jail and the courage to run away from T. Ray. June who at the end has courage to marry Neil etc. Then we have hate, hate witch is shown in the scene where both Rosaleen and Zack gets beaten up from white men. The hate that Lily often feels toward her father etc.
I personally cant pick one of these themes or even other themes that I haven’t mentioned like racism and many others. So, I cant make myself pick witch one of these has the biggest impact in the movie or in the book. They all play so big parts to me.

I love reading books so when I heard we where going to read a book I didn’t mind reading any book at all. I’m happy with my choice and I loved the book and also the movie. I had a great experience writing on a blogg and learning how it works. It was a little stressful because this is all new to me and I didn’t know how much and how often we where suppose to write but it was great to use another learning method and doing something new. All in all I loved reading and writing about the book and seeing others opinions and reading about the other books that other students in our class read about.