Labor Day | My 2014 Reading Challenge

This year I’ve challenged myself to read at least one book per month. I’ll be selecting titles from this list of books that will be coming to the big screen this year. You can read more about my 2014 Reading Challenge here.

 

So I’m off on a good foot with my January book, Labor Day. I started the book on my Kindle (it was all checked out the library, sigh) midway through January and finished it in less than a week. It was a quick read. The story is told from the perspective of a teenage boy and takes place over Labor Day weekend in the late 1980s somewhere in the Northeast. The story centers around 13-year-old Henry, his mother Adele, and escaped convict Frank. After agreeing to give Frank a ride, the three spend the weekend together seemingly becoming more and more like a family and with Adele and Frank learning to love again. One thing in reading this book is that I wished I knew more about what the other main characters were really thinking during certain parts of the story rather than hearing Henry’s assumptions or their thoughts being ignored completely. I rated the book three stars over on Goodreads.

Even though I finished the book a few weeks ago I wasn’t able to see the movie until I went with my cousin this past weekend. (It is HARD for Moms to escape for some solo entertainment time. Anyone want to volunteer for some free babysitting?) As a side note, I’ve frequently watched movies that have been adapted from books before but knowing that I would be writing about it made me tune in even more to the differences between the book and the movie.

In the movie Labor Day there were a lot of differences from the book. For me, many of those differences made the story even less believable and many of the characters less likable and less relatable. A saving grace was the acting of Kate Winslet. She played the mother, Adele, who in the book is portrayed as very emotionally fragile after suffering many losses in her life. She portrayed the low simmering feelings of the character so well, in a very understated way, often with only a look. If you’re a Kate Winslet fan and are looking for a movie this weekend this might be one you’d enjoy, otherwise I’d spend my $12 on The Lego Movie.

The next book on my list is The Monuments Men. I started reading this weeks ago on my Kindle (another one all checked out…), as soon as I finished Labor Day. I am trudging along but it is a LONG book. I’ll be back soon with some short thoughts on this book and movie.

Note: It seems that many others want to read these books before the movie comes out too. So to beat the rush I’ve hatched a plan to put the next couple books ahead on my list on reserve at the LAPL so that they’re ready to go once I’ve finished each book. I want a majority of the books I read from this list to be from the library.