Every once in a while, I rediscover my love for reading and undergo the same ritual. Step one: Realize I’m filling my free time (that I once spent mindlessly scrolling) with reading, just like when I was a horse-obsessed kid. Step two: Think to myself, “Why don’t I do this more often? Ahh, because it’s hard to find books and the publishing industry is a cesspool. RIP.” And finally, step three: I realize I need more of this book and am bewildered as to why there’s seemingly nobody else talking about it. I want to live in this book. I want to marry this book. I want to see every character stretched from floor to ceiling in front of me and luxuriate in their forms come to life.
Obviously, unless the book is a fantasy best-seller or a YA media-adaptation calling-card, most people aren’t talking about books these days. At least not as much as I wish they were. Books command a more introspective sort of engagement that is rarely capitalized on by fan-artists and the like, leaving us with only one avenue of extenuating adaptations: the screen.
All of this to say, there are so many good books out there that’d do so well on TV and the big screen. Here are 8 such books that I’d love to see play out in front of us someday. Come on movie execs, do me a solid and just make these! And call me if you need any help doing so! That’s how it works, right?
The Idiot
*pinches bridge of nose* Okay, so, here’s the thing. This is sometimes a frustrating book to read. The main character, Selin, is absolutely brilliant, but it’s not a stretch to consider her romantically inept, and like many young women at some point (I’m raising my hand), her romantic attention is wasted on a guy who hasn’t earned it whatsoever.
But unlike Normal People, which featured characters that at times felt flat and wholly focused on their relationship, The Idiot features a protagonist whose recounting of the ins and outs of her daily life is utterly charming and captivating. She has a way of installing little vignettes with the most detailed flairs, and I found that this was a very quick read, not because it was poorly written, but because it literally flew by like a really good movie. I can see it filling a similar niche as Baumbach’s Frances Ha: that of the young woman navigating absurdities with her own absurd perspective. A.K.A., the sort of film that’s right up my alley.
Sharks in the Time of Saviors
Similarly to The Idiot, I often thought of my time with Sharks in the Time of Saviors less as a reading experience, and more like I was mentally recording a really good movie. It plays out like a beautifully directed saga, and even though the events of the story are tragic, they’re presented in a way that’s deeply personal, expertly detailed, and so utterly captivating, it made me feel hollow when it ended.
Hawaiian narratives are rarely presented from the perspective of Native Hawaiians, making this story even more of a worthy candidate for a screen adaptation. And even aside from that, the story is just plain magical, the sort of tale that makes you believe that there’s still magic in this world. Such optimism, born out of pain and suffering, is the sort of narrative I think we ought to see more of in media.
The Secret History
The snob in me was so annoyed when people were all of a sudden talking about Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch when they got a cast of America’s Favorite White Boys to star in its film adaptation. Yet here I am, considering how absolutely nuts an adaptation of The Secret History would be.
I haven’t seen the film adaptation of The Goldfinch so I can’t speak to how faithfully it represented the source material, but I can’t see a bad way that The Secret History could be adapted. It’s a thriller-drama, full of intrigue, the origins of “dark academia,” murder, sex, drugs, and all on an Ivy League campus, oh my god. Yes, there were times when the plot is a little much and I’d find myself saying, “Wow this is so stupid,” but what’s the point of consuming content if we don’t get a little campy every once in a while? At the very least, I think it’s inevitable that the cast of this movie would be very, very attractive.
Lincoln in the Bardo
Generally, I lean towards a negative perspective of American history, so stories that incorporate said history into their narrative aren’t very interesting to me. But Lincoln in the Bardo is the sort of story that transcends all of that. It’s strange, it’s mystical, and it pays homage to a bloody and brutal history in a way that is nuanced and incredibly moving.
Also, bro, there’s hella ghosts. Most of the cast is ghosts. The ghosts are helping a new ghost pass onto the next life, and it’s hilarious, heartwrenching, and overall gorgeous to behold. I can only imagine how a creative and talented director would make this happen on-screen, from the likes of Laika’s stop-motion creations, to the insightful humor brought about by Taika Waititi.
The Once and Future King
Once upon a time, I randomly decided to read an Arthurian story compilation in middle school, and ever since I’ve been a huge nerd for all things Arthurian. The result is me being the only person I know who loved The Green Knight so much, I watched it three times. And now, all I can think is, We need more of these faithful, artsy-fartsy adaptations that aren’t full of the dumb, overly-masculine BS that other adaptations are obsessed with!!
What better book adaptation to work with, then, than The Once and Future King? With the exception of its rather shallow depiction of its women (TH White had a complicated relationship with gender and sexuality), TOAFK is perhaps the most humorous, innovative, and loving rendition of the Arthurian canon to date. It brings a much-needed touch of humanity to its characters and was written as an anti-war narrative, which colored its depictions of “valor” in a much more gripping way. And honestly, that’s the sort of narrative we need on-screen these days: triumph without the glorification of violence.
And bisexual Lancelot, of course. What, I didn’t mention that? Well, it’s a thing. Read the book. Speaking of Lancelot, he’s described as having an “unconventionally attractive face,” so…I always thought Adam Driver would fulfill that role quite well!
The New Me
There’s something horrific about what we accept as the mundane. You get up and go to a job that doesn’t value you, you pretend to like it, you go home, you eat, you sleep, you repeat. On the chance that you have plans, you go and put on a face as though the trends of the day mean anything at all to you.
Halle Butler’s The New Me captures the horrors of normal life under late-capitalism in a way that’s unsettling, jarring, and incredibly gripping. I could easily see the creepy way that Millie engages life being recreated in a manner like Whiplash, where everything feels tense and highly-wound, and you’re just waiting for someone to finally snap.
Once Upon a River
I sometimes think people get a little carried away with their descriptions of “magical realism,” but in the case of Once Upon a River, I really did feel as though I was reading a modern folk/fairy tale. It’s a strange, yet absolutely gorgeous tale of a village that discovers a dead girl floating down a river…and then, miraculously, she comes back to life.
The mystery of it all, the diverging factions, the unique moral quandaries that arise…ahh, it’s just such a gripping read, and it could easily be made into a screen adaptation! The likes of The Essex Serpent come to mind (although markedly less boring and fluffy, although that’s just my opinion). Out of every book on this list, this was the one that had me feeling the most bummed out when I’d finished it—because I wanted it to just go on and on and on. A perfect book to make into a movie or show, no?
The Scorpio Races
So I’m gonna end this on a somewhat hypocritical note. I strongly dislike YA as a genre. I think, as a whole, YA can be trite and perpetuate harmful stereotypes and expectations for young readers, related to race, sexuality, and so on and so on.
THAT SAID…The Scorpio Races kicks ass, and has always kicked ass, and I never understood why, of ALL the YA books out there, this remarkably non-crappy one never got greenlit for a movie or show. It’s been around a decade since I first read it, and I still think about it sometimes and lament that there isn’t more of it. It follows a remote island where, every so often, murder-horses come out of the ocean. And if you manage to tame one and win a race with it, you get a lot of money. But it’s murder horses, y’all. Murder. Horses.
How sick would that be to see?????? Teens having sex is over and done with, you Hollywood perverts. It’s Murder Horse time.
(Featured Image: MacMillan/Fox)
