I first read this book in the early 2000s when it came out. I LOVED it. I read it again a few years later, and I heard it was being adapted for a movie and Johnny Depp was attached to the project. Very exciting, and then so many things changed along the way and years later it's finally announced as a TV show by Apple, starring Charlie Hunnam, who I loved in Sons of Anarchy. So as you can imagine I am super excited, I've been waiting all this time for this. When the tv show was announced I decided to read the book again just so it'd be fresh in my mind when the show finally came out.
Well. Maybe if you watch the show with absolutely no knowledge of the book or the story, you'll like or even love the show. I waited to write this review because I wanted to give the show the benefit of the doubt, and see if it redeemed itself along the way. But I feel like I've seen enough of the show now to write a fair review and the general theme is that I'm disappointed. The book is so well written, and things obviously had to change a little for a tv adaptation, but I think they lost the magic of the book, and by veering so far from the true story, they've also added a lot of confusion. Again- maybe if you're watching this blindly with no previous knowledge of the story, you might be able to ignore or be oblivious to the flaws, but I am having a hard time even enjoying the good parts of the show because it is so different from the story I loved.
I also wonder if I hadn't reread the book so recently, would I be as disappointed as I am, and I'm not sure. There is so much that's different on the show. And as much as I loved Charlie Hunnam in SoA, and just in general, I think he's not quite right for Lin. And Abdullah's casting also seems way off from how he's described in the book. I will keep watching the rest of the season but I am just kind of heartbroken that I was so let down by this adaptation of such a great story. No dancing bear at all!! A travesty.
Well. Maybe if you watch the show with absolutely no knowledge of the book or the story, you'll like or even love the show. I waited to write this review because I wanted to give the show the benefit of the doubt, and see if it redeemed itself along the way. But I feel like I've seen enough of the show now to write a fair review and the general theme is that I'm disappointed. The book is so well written, and things obviously had to change a little for a tv adaptation, but I think they lost the magic of the book, and by veering so far from the true story, they've also added a lot of confusion. Again- maybe if you're watching this blindly with no previous knowledge of the story, you might be able to ignore or be oblivious to the flaws, but I am having a hard time even enjoying the good parts of the show because it is so different from the story I loved.
I also wonder if I hadn't reread the book so recently, would I be as disappointed as I am, and I'm not sure. There is so much that's different on the show. And as much as I loved Charlie Hunnam in SoA, and just in general, I think he's not quite right for Lin. And Abdullah's casting also seems way off from how he's described in the book. I will keep watching the rest of the season but I am just kind of heartbroken that I was so let down by this adaptation of such a great story. No dancing bear at all!! A travesty.