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| Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller in The Spectacular Now |
The Spectacular Now, by Tim Tharp.
I'm going to confess something here: I started this blog to bring you reviews of books I read - that I personally chose to read - and then somewhere along the way I started to receive so many books I "had" to read, that when I read "for pleasure" now, I sometimes keep my reviews to myself. Sure, I'll post them on Goodreads or wherever, but not here - I'm just too busy or tired (I also do movie reviews over at Yes/No Films, my movie blog, and it's occasionally hard to juggle both).The Spectacular Now, however, is a secret that shouldn't be kept. I just read it for my book club, and it was a unique tale; it's also coming to the big screen on August 2nd, so if you're going to read it, you should do it this month.
It's a YA (Young Adult) book, which is one of the genres I'm rather fond of, but the narrator is a teenage boy: Sutter Keely. Sutter likes to live in "the spectacular now," which means being the life of the party, drinking more than he should, and not making any goals for the future. That is, until he meets Aimee Finecky, the typical "nice girl," whom he wants to help loosen up and feel more confident. That's the goal at first, anyways, until it turns into something more, something that surprises them both.
When I was reading this book, I had Miles Teller (Footloose) and Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) in my head as the two main characters, because they will be playing them in the movie adaptation, and I have to say that the casting there is a fantastic choice. Teller was great in Footloose and I can definitely see him as the carefree, loving-life Sutter, and Woodley exudes innocence and sweetness that will be needed to play Aimee.
I'm excited to see the movie when it hits theaters on August 2nd, and I recommend that you read the book first, as it was a great read.
4.5 stars out of 5.
(*This post is not sponsored; it's just me being really enthusiastic about an awesome book that's soon to turn into a movie.)
The Spectacular Now trailer:
