Page to Screen #1: The 5th Wave

Welcome to a new Queen of Books feature. This is a book v. movie comparison and I will show which one is the best in my opinion. 

Each will include mini reviews/summaries, outline of differences between the book and adaptation, I will rate each on the aspects [setting, plot, characters] and will choose which was better. 

  VS

THE BOOK

Title: The 5th Wave

Author: Rick Yancey

Publication Date: May 7, 2013

Publisher: G.P Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Pages: 457

My Review: 

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother-or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

This book was not something I thought I would thoroughly enjoy. People had said it was amazing but I didn't feel as if I would actually enjoy it. I put off reading it for ages until I finally checked it out from the library and actually sat down and read through it. I realized that what other people had been saying was right. This book really was great. It was action-packed and the characters were bad-ass. 

I love reading books. There is something magical about actually getting to imagine the characters in the way you want to and not have actors skewing your opinions. In this book I imagined the beloved characters a certain way and I stuck with them.  When I was reading this book I tried to think of why it was written rather than just being mesmerized by the wonderful action-packed sequences. 

The characters are all three-dimensional and all have issues of their own but that is what makes them human [and in this book, that's a very important aspect].  The world-building is done fantastically and everything is wonderfully tied together. 

Characters: 5/5

Setting: 5/5

Writing: 5/5

Plot: 5/5

Cover: 4/5

Overall: 5/5

THE MOVIE

Title: The 5th Wave

Director: J. Blakeson

Actors: Chloe Grace Moretz, Nick Robinson, Alex Roe, Maika Monroe

Release Date: January 22, 2016

Runtime: 1 hour and 52 minutes

The human race stands on the brink of extinction as a series of alien attacks decimate the 

planet, causing earthquakes, tsunamis and disease. Separated from her family, Ohio 

teenager Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) will do whatever it takes to reunite with her 

brother Sam. Fate leads her to form an alliance with Evan Walker (Alex Roe), a mysterious 

young man who may be her last hope. Forced to trust each other, Cassie and Evan fight for 

survival during the fifth assault from the invaders.

I am familiar with movies that don't follow the book at all or movies that are a ghost of what the book was and I am sorry to say that that is what I thought would happen when I watched this movie. The movie turned out to follow the book pretty well. 

This movie was really good however a few things took it down from being a perfect book to movie adaptation to a good book to movie adaptation. 

The first of those is how the characters were portrayed. The cast was amazing and I wouldn't have wanted a different cast. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the way they were portrayed. For example, I did not imagine Ringer to be a sort of emo girl. Sure she was tough but I thought she was supposed to be really pretty and that is not what I was getting from the movie. 

Another issue with this movie was the pace. I felt like a lot of things were rushed which led us to believe everything was faster than it initially was. For example, Cassie met Evan way too soon and trusts him way too soon which is not what happened in the book. 

Cast: 5/5 

Cinematography: 5/5

Screenplay: 4/5

Performances: 4/5

Overall: 4.5/5

NOTABLE DIFFERENCES

1. The fact that their hair stays picture perfect throughout makes me really mad. Like, they are out surviving in the wilderness so at least make it look realistic. 

2. The romance in the movie seemed to happen much faster than in the book which was still extremely fast for my taste. 

3. Ringer didn't look exactly how I wanted her to. I didn't expect her to look as emo as she did. 

4. How in the movie she missed the bus but in the book she wasn't allowed to go with her brother. That annoyed me a lot. 

5. The order in which Cassie told the story was also different. 

6. Vosch doesn't specifically kill her father. This kind of made me mad cause it wasn't as sad as in the book. 

7. Reznik is a woman in the movie

8. They don't mention Wonderland that much. 

9. Sammy doesn't pray in the camp like he does in the movie. 

10. Ringer doesn't kill Reznik. Instead Cassie does. 

THE BOTTOM LINE

I adored the movie but the book is officially the winner of this battle. The movie was missing some things and changed a couple things that annoyed me. But the book was amazing and I loved it.