The Book Addict Reviews: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Social Issue, Music
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 4 stars
Borrowed from library.

In A Nutshell:
So many of the books I have read recently have drawn on the importance of music to teens--how it is a way to express themselves, to cope with the events going on in their lives, a passion that brings them back from dark and depressing places.  In some ways, I worried that Just Listen would not have anything new to bring to my experience.  But Just Listen is not like any of the other books related to music that I have read.  My only regret is that I put it off so long.

Review:
Annabel's life looks perfect from the outside.  She models and has become an inspiration to younger girls.  She lives in a glass house where people passing by have the opportunity to see a picturesque view a modern family eating dinner or seating together in the living room.  With so much of her life open to the world, its easy to think that she does not have any secrets.  That her life is everything that can be seen from the outside.

But Annabel has secrets that she keeps in an effort to keep the peace in her house.  She cannot bear to tell her mother for fear that her mother will have another breakdown.  She cannot bear to tell her sisters because they are both dealing with their own serious problems.  She cannot tell her friends because many of them abandoned her after an episode at a party.

She is alone in her struggles until she meets Owen.  Owen is not the typical YA hero.  He is big and a little clumsy.  He has been arrested and had to undergo an anger management course.  At first Annabel is a little intimidated by Owen, then Annabel was awed by Owen's complete honesty, then Annabel was a little scared of Owen because he saw through her more than anyone.

As much as I loved the story and the characters, I was a little underwhelmed with the audiobook.  The narrator did try really hard to use different voices for different characters but some of the voices came out sounding slower and not at all the way I thought the characters would have sounded if I had been reading the book.  I do not recommend this narrator, but the story itself was wonderful.      

Recommendations:
Sarah Dessen is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, which you could probably tell from the reviews I have done already This Lullaby and What Happened to Goodbye.  I want to read all of her books and I think my next one will be:

To The Movies: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

When a storyline from a book is turned into a movie, the movie becomes its own text. The basic storyline may be the same, but when changes are made in order to fit the movie within a time limit or to highlight an element or theme that the people involved in the movie feels is important—they make the story their own. I will focus these features on movies made based on books I have read—I want to look beyond whether I think the movie is better or worse than the book. I want to appreciate and review the movie as a companion to the book.
_____________________________________________________


Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music, Romance
Actors: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, and Aaron Yoo
Director: Peter Sollett
Scriptwriter: Lorene Scafaria
Date DVD Released: February 3, 2009
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Movie Info: IMDB
Order Online: Amazon.com
Rating: 2 Stars
Borrowed from library.

In A Nutshell:
I liked this movie.  I could watch it more than one time and be satisfied.  But there was nothing about the movie that overly impressed me and there were a few things that I missed from the book.  Otherwise, it was just a good movie that was easy to watch.

Review:
There were a couple of things that differed from the book that I found disappointing.  First, the character of Tris.  In the book, her story develops.  We get to see that she is not quite as shallow or self-centered as she initially comes off.  In the movie, she never develops that aspect and because of it I felt that she was just a b***h in the movie.  It made the parts with her uneasy to watch.  Second, the music became more of a prop than central to the story.  In the book, the actual songs that Nick and Norah played when they were together matter--it was part of what drew them to each other.  In the book, we saw the iPod, they talked about music throughout, but we did not get to delve into the individual songs.  We had to take their words for it that Nick's playlists and mixes were wonderful--which seemed like an unusual choice for a movie where the playlist is central to the title.  But more than that, I was a little disappointed--after reading the book I wanted to hear the music that Nick and Norah talked about, the music that brought them together. 

One of the key elements of the book that I loved was reading the story from both of their perspectives.  I did miss that aspect in the movie.  There are attempts to bring that to the movie but most of the time the movie seems to be from the perspective of a third person looking in.  So when Norah lets Tal kiss her or when it looks like she will leave with him, as a viewer I was left questioning why.  Even at the end, I am not 100 percent sure of what she is thinking when it comes to Tal.  And I do not remember having so many questions about the relationship between Norah and Tal when I read the book. 

Recommendations:
I could not think of a movie that I would recommend similar to this movie, so I am going to recommend a book that I absolutely adored that was similar to the novel: