Scrooge #worstgiftever. Adapted by Brett Wright. 2016. 112 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: Jacob Marley is dead.
Premise/plot: The Christmas Carol adapted and told through text messages with plenty of emojis to spare.
My thoughts: The book's biggest strength is that it is an absolute breeze to get through. It won't take much of your time as a reader. Of course, that could be because there isn't much substance. To be fair, there are plenty of adaptations of A Christmas Carol--on film especially. The shortest I've seen is under ten minutes. The story lends itself well to adaptation.
The book is essentially a hundred plus pages of gimmick. It is a novelty book cover to cover. If you find the idea of Scrooge and the four visiting ghosts texting hilarious to amusing, then this one might amuse you for most of the book. I personally was over the gimmick relatively early.
Because it has been adapted so many times in so many different ways, people might assume that there isn't all that much there to Dickens' characters. Some adaptations are amazing at depth of character--in particular Scrooge. But some are not--some are barely caricature. For the story to have the ability to MOVE the reader--to resonate with the reader--Scrooge must be fully fleshed out or made human. This "book" lacks ALL characterization.
Also it is marketed as a children's book--published by Random House's children's division--yet it contains adult-ish abbreviations that aren't quite kid-appropriate (in my opinion). So I wouldn't personally recommend it for kids.
© 2021 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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