Screen Reads

One of the most highly anticipated young adult films coming out this year is the second film in the incredibly popular 'Hunger Games" trilogy, "Catching Fire". The first book (and film adaptation) follows the story of a young girl named Katniss, who lives in a dystopian future, where America is sectioned into 12 districts and a 'Capitol'. Every year, two children over the age of twelve are picked out to compete in a fight to the death on live television called 'The Hunger Games'. Katniss, from district twelve, volunteers to compete in these games in the place of her little sister. The second book, 'Catching Fire', is the follow on from this story, in which Katniss is visited by the malicious president Snow, who threatens to take action against her rebellion in the games. Her and her district twelve counterpart in the games, who also happens to be her fake love interest embark on their victory tour, only to be entered back into the games again after a strange turn of events.

The 'Hunger Games' film got mixed reviews when it was released late last year, as some people claimed that the film skipped over important scenes in the book and did not supply the viewer with enough information to understand the storyline fully. When I went to see the film, I had read the books, and so understood the story fully, but i noticed that for people who had not read the books, important snippets of information were left out, which I thought made the story that much more intricate and intereseting.

As for 'Catching Fire', I loved the book, and hope the film delivers! The release date is 22nd November this year,

Screen Reads

2013 seems to be the year of new young adult film releases. After the completion of the hit series 'Twilight', based on the incredibly popular books written by Stephenie Meyer many films are fighting to gain the attention of young adults once again. Some of these films coming out in the year are based on great novels, written by bestselling young adult authors.

'Warm Bodies' is a book written by Isaac Marion, about a teenage zombie who finds himself breaking the emotionless mould in which he is meant to fit and falling in love with a living girl. The zombie, R, is different to the others. He tries desperately to fight against the disease that is slowly turning him into the horrible, skeletal creature that he hates. After eating the brains of a young girls boyfriend, he begins to see his memories of her through his own lifeless eyes. He decides to save her life, and in doing so, saves his own.

The film is incredibly appealing to young adults, with the perfect balance of comedy and romance. There are plenty of funny scenes, centered around the incapability of R and his struggle to impress Julie, matched with some equally touching scenes.

Overall, 'Warm Bodies' is not an exceptionally gripping film, but it is a great light watch and a brilliant young adult film. I would highly suggest reading the book, as with most film adaptations, it does skip from scene to scene and glazes over some more minor details; ones that you would miss if you had first read the book but if you are new to the experience then the film still captures the essence of the author spectacularly.

Ellen

World Book Day Apps

This year, the World Book Day site has launched a Young Adults app for IOS and Android. The app will contain featured stories from these young adult authors:

Patrick Ness (writer of The Knife of Never Letting Go)

Josephine Angelini (author of Starcrossed)

 

Will Hill (Department 19)

 

 Sarah Alderson (Fated)

 

Books written by these authors will be featured on the app, along with books from five other writers, 4 of whom are yet to join. The app will be powered by the writing community Movellas, a site where aspiring authors can write and upload their own stories to be read and reviewed  by members of the Movellas community. The members were asked to vote for their favourite movella, and these are the stories to be featured on the app alongside the nine stories written by the internationally acclaimed writers.

In addition to this, the movellas site will soon be announcing a competition for one more story to be added to the app. So go and check out the movellas site, and keep an eye out for the announcement of the competition, and maybe you could be the writer of the final story to be featured on the World Book Day App.