Trash Talk Tuesday: More than a love story

"You gotta pay attention to signs. 

When life reaches out with a moment like this,

it's a sin if you don't reach back..." 

- The Silver Linings Playbook, Matthew Quick

 I was sold when the trailer for the movie version of this book featured Bradley Cooper throwing A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway out of a window. He was so upset by the outcome of the novel, that I laughed even though the ending to that same book made me cry hysterically. 

The movie version of the book was great, and after reading the novel almost all of my internal writing critic questions and judgements of the film were resolved. Being an avid lover of both film and novels I always pay attention to the differences and likenesses made in the process of adapting a book into a film. In general, the biggest change for The Silver Linings Playbook is that the novel is not a love story. It is a man overcoming and facing his mental illness and what led him into a mental breakdown. His breakdown has to do with love, and his ability to "move-on" from the breakdown has to do with love but it is not Tiffany (played by Jennifer Lawerence in the film) who solves the problem. It is not falling in love that saves Pat Peoples. In the movie, the problems of his past relationship is basically healed with a new one. But that's not the case in the novel, and I really appreciated that change. There is something that annoys me about that mindset, its like giving yourself an injury to distract yourself from an injury. 

My rating of Quick's The Silver Linings Playbooks would be a 3.5. I don't believe an English teacher would want to teach a class on the novel but overall I'm not embarrassed to mention my having read the novel to a professor. Feel free to argue my rating if you have read the book yourself. My reviews are completely my opinion, and I do not see myself as "all-knowing" in the realm of rating books, movies, or television. 

If you haven't read the book but you enjoyed the movie, then READ THE BOOK. 

Currently reading: Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test edited by Mark D. White
and Watchmen by Alan Moore