Shutter Island

          The book I’m currently reading is Shutter Island. The book should be kept as a film, because it’s moderately short. Most TV series are also book series, and so much happens in the 369 pages of Shutter Island it’d be hard to space it all out. One of the most important scenes in the beginning of the book is that the main character’s wife died. Her name was Delores. She died in an apartment fire, and the fire was arson. The guy who started the fire is apparently at Ashcliffe (Shutter Island) and Teddy soon becomes obsessed with finding the man who killed his wife. The next important scene in the book is about the mental patient that went missing, Rachel. She drowned her three kids in the lake behind her house and then sat them down at the dinner table like nothing even happened. The best part is, she invited her neighbor in to have food with her and her three dead kids around the dinner table. She’s a schizophrenic, and she had no idea she had even killed her kids. It’s important because why would she be in a mental institution in the middle of nowhere if she never did something horrible?
          One twist that I think the movie should keep is that the doctor of the island, is on vacation. He goes on vacation the day after Rachel goes missing, which is really strange. They emphasize it a lot in the book, so I picture that it could come back sometime in the future and it could be important. There’s a scene where Chuck and Teddy get stuck in a graveyard during a hurricane on the island, and they flee to a mausoleum that’s open. In there, that’s where they really get to know each other. They tell each other personal stories, and they crack the code that Rachel left behind before she disappeared. To leave that out, we’d lose personal information about both Chuck and Teddy, and we may not know what the code Rachel left meant.

            Teddy would need to be a tall male, preferably attractive, who is a leader-type looking person. His partner, Chuck, I picture him being a tall male, with curly brown hair and defenseless looking. Much less tough than Teddy. Rachel, the missing patient, would need to be a beautiful, brown haired woman with a loud voice, because she screams and yells a lot. She’s beautiful, but psycho. I see Teddy’s wife as a young, busty blonde with curly hair. He talks about her a lot, and even though she’s dead, he has flashbacks of her all the time.

            The soundtrack to the movie is most important. It’s what people hear when there’s no dialogue. Shutter Island gives me a really creepy vibe. So I think there should be eerie, mysterious music playing in the background. If there was happy music playing, that wouldn’t make any sense. It’s an island with a bunch of psycho murderers locked up with one of them missing, I feel like suspenseful music would fit perfectly. There’s also a scene in the book where Teddy gets into an argument with a patient that he knew. The music there would be very loud and intense, because it gets really heated and the patient is really creepy looking.

            One thing the movie should not ever change, is the ending. It turns out, Teddy is actually a psycho killer named Andrew Laediss, who has lived on the island for two years. He used to be a US Marshall, but he murdered his wife, Dolores, who killed their three kids, Daniel, Edward and Rachel. His whole life is an illusion. He doesn’t believe he’s Andrew, he believes he’s Teddy and that his wife was killed in an apartment fire a few years back. The doctors on the island set the whole story up to try and bring Teddy, or Andrew, to his senses. They created a fake plot, in which a patient went missing, Chuck, his partner, is actually the doctor they told us In the book at the beginning went on vacation, and made Teddy believe he was actually a US Marshall. If they changed the ending, to make it so Teddy was actually sane and got off the island safely and went back home, half of the movie wouldn’t make sense. The dreams he has about his dead wife and kids, the migraines he gets, the fact that the code Rachel left behind is telling him there’s a patient 67, none of it would make sense.
 

Book One Project

For Twilight, there’s team Edward and team Jacob. So why not team Nick and team Amy merchandise. I was constantly torn between who I liked better. Nick, the cheater who is being framed by his psychotic wife. Or Amy, the crazy wife who is being cheated on by her unfaithful husband. I’m sure some people agree with what Amy did, and some people are taking Nick’s side, because they feel bad for him. I personally, think Amy is a psycho and should be locked up away from people forever, but that’s just me.

My idea is that we could have shirts, posters, stickers, etc. saying “Team Amy” or “Team Nick”. Amy’s merchandise could have a picture of her, holding the Punch and Judy dolls in her arms. It could have quotes from her fake diary in the background. Nick’s merchandise could have a picture of him in front of The Bar holding the 4 clues Amy gave him for the scavenger hunt.  Most people have probably chosen a side, Amy or Nick.  On page 142, Nick begins with "I have a mistress. Now is the part where I have to tell you I have a mistress and you stop liking me." That was a huge turning point in the book. We were all feeling so bad for Nick that his wife is gone and blah blah blah. But, now he's a cheating jerk who has a wife that's missing and a 23 year old mistress. So, team Nick or team Amy?  
Another huge turning point in the book is in part two, Boy Meets Girl. It’s the present now, and it begins with Amy’s diary entry. On page 219 she says “I’m so much happier now that I’m dead. Technically, missing. Soon to be presumed dead.” This part proves that Amy is faking her own death and it literally framing her husband. What a psycho, who does that? But, on the other hand, her husband was cheating on her and she needed to get the heck out of Dodge. Amy wrote a fake diary, cut herself and then cleaned up the blood, staged a fake fight in the living room, left without a trace. Some readers may not like Amy so much at this point. So, team Nick, or team Amy?
Close to the end of the book, in part three, is the biggest turning point in the book. It’s also where most readers decide if they want Amy dead, or alive. It’s when Nick tries to choke her, and possibly kill her. On page 394, the couple is arguing. Amy compares Nick to his dad which makes him angry, and the chapter ends with, “Then his hands are on my neck.” At the start of the next chapter, from Nick’s perspective, it begins, “Her pulse was finally throbbing between my fingers, the way that I’d imagined.” At this point, the reader either wants Nick to kill Amy, or for him to let her go. I personally wish he would’ve killed her, but that isn’t how it ended. However, this is a huge indication of who the reader likes more. Team Nick, or team Amy?

The funny part was, on page 410 Nick actually says, “So let everyone take sides. Team Nick, Team Amy. Turn it into even more of a game. Sell some f***ing T-Shirts.” Which is true, they absolutely should! Twilight was such a big hit, and people obviously were taking sides. Good and Evil. In this case it’s a little bit of both, but it could still work. It could spike conversations in book clubs. Families could discuss who they like better over the dinner table. Friends could argue about how crazy Amy is and how careless Nick is. In all of the name of fun, no one needs to be throwing punches over how much they love Nick or over how crazy Amy is.

What is a Book? (Finished)

A book is a place that is somewhere outside of reality. It is something that you get to picture and create in your own mind. A book is an escape from the real world. Something to spark your imagination. It is not a Kindle, or an iPad. It’s something with pages inside of it, with a message between the lines. A book has an old smell to it, like moth balls and dust. The pages are dog eared because it’s clearly been loved on, and has a coffee stain on the front cover of it. With maybe a few spider webs inside here and there. You can’t have any of those things with a Kindle or an iPad or a cell phone copy of the book. If you have to charge anything to read it, then it is not a book. Sure, it’s an alternative. But it’s nothing like going to the bookstore and sitting in a chair surrounded by old books wishing to be read. A book is nothing without its spine. I mean I own a kindle, but I never use it. It hurts my eyes when I look at it too long. Sure, it’s convenient being able to download a book at the push of a button, but the fact that we are making everything electronic makes me angry. Especially books. I actually enjoy going to the bookstore and hunting to find the book I’m looking for. It’s like a scavenger hunt, you never know what you’ll find. A book is also something you’re able to collect and pass down to your friends and family throughout the years. It’s not like you can pass a Kindle or iPad down. You can’t collect Kindles and iPads. Yes, you can have your own personal library on those devices, but it isn’t the same. A book to me, is something I can hold in two hands, not on some special, electronic device, with real paper and pages I can turn and enjoy.

 

Why I Read (Finished)

I read mostly to escape from the real world. I read because I get to think of how all the characters look and how everything around them looks. It's an escape from reality, and you plunge into your own little world of imagination. I also read because I get an adrenaline rush from it. I usually read mystery and suspense books. I find them most interesting. Once I get hooked on a book, I honestly can't put it down and will read for hours without even thinking about it. I usually read when I’m upset or angry, because it calms me down. I take a break from the real world and take the time and go to a different world inside a book. I also read to pass time, like in the car or on vacation. It gives me something to do, and it passes a lot of time, like sleeping. But reading is better. Another reason I read is to fall asleep. If I’m awake at night and can’t seem to fall asleep, I’ll pick up a book and read for a while until I feel drowsy, and I can usually fall right to sleep. I read for many different types of reasons, but mostly because I love it.