My Sister's Keeper

Why read? Personally I love to read and to pinpoint an exact reason is difficult. Reading allows your imagination to wander, where a movie is simply given to you straightforward leaving no room for creativity. I feel that books allow a reader to become more immersed in that world due to the amount of time a person spends reading, they feel more connected with the characters and become emotionally involved. When I read my Sister’s Keeper I cried during the last portion of the novel, yet the movie was not a tear-jerker.

However like Harry Potter, My Sister’s Keeper had grown to be one of my favorite novels and the movie version completely butchered the storyline changing the ending. In the novel the younger sister had just medically emancipated herself so she did not have to give her sister, who had cancer, a kidney. In that last chapter of the book a twist occurs and Anna, the younger sister is in a serious car accident and brought to the hospital. This resulted in the cancer sister, Kate, receiving a transplanted kidney from her sister who was brain dead from the accident and died shortly afterward.  In the movie I was shocked to find that after Anna medically emancipated herself and refused to give her a kidney transplant, Kate died due to cancer. As you can imagine anyone who read the book was sorely disappointed.

Movies adaptations are ruining good books by differing from the novel, therefore the audience is disappointed. Even those who did not read the novel prior to the movie’s premiere are not getting the best storyline, in turn deterring them from wanting to read the book afterward. These movies not only taking away from the audience, but insult the author as well.. They are taking away everything the author worked for and creating a worse version of their already amazing book just for entertainment. However what is more disappointing are those authors that sign over the rights of their books to a movie company. Why would you give away everything you worked for? Why would you encourage movies over books? The movie industry is corrupting the book industry, and unfortunately some authors are contributing to this phenomenon.