Book to Movie Adaptations Coming Soon

Here are two books being made into movies that have caught my attention recently! I will update the blog with reviews for the movies as I see them. The Beguiled is due out on June 30, 2017 and My Cousin Rachel was released on June 9, 2017. My Cousin Rachel appears to be playing in fewer theaters so I might have to wait until it comes out on DVD/Blu-ray. If you are interested in creepier tales, consider giving these a try!


Title: The Beguiled
Author: Thomas Cullinan
Page Count: 384
Keywords: Civil War, Boarding School, Horror
Genre: Fiction
Younger Readers: I have not read this personally but the content sounds potentially problematic for young readers.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

The basis for the major motion picture directed by Sofia Coppola--named best director at the Cannes Film Festival for The Beguiled--and starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning

"[A] mad gothic tale . . . The reader is mesmerized with horror by what goes on in that forgotten school for young ladies." --Stephen King, in Danse Macabre

Wounded and near death, a young Union Army corporal is found in the woods of Virginia during the height of the Civil War and brought to the nearby Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies. Almost immediately he sets about beguiling the three women and five teenage girls stranded in this outpost of Southern gentility, eliciting their love and fear, pity and infatuation, and pitting them against one another in a bid for his freedom. But as the women are revealed for what they really are, a sense of ominous foreboding closes in on the soldier, and the question becomes: Just who is the beguiled?

My Thoughts on the Film (Updated 6/29/17)

...oh lordy I wanted to really enjoy this movie. The reviews were fantastic and the trailer painted a fantastically creepy Civil War era story. But I just could not bring myself to enjoy it by any means and convincing people to go see this with me has now cost me choosing rights for at least a month. I truly hate writing negative reviews but here it goes.

The good: the actors did well with their parts and it was a truly appealing film visually...except the gory bits.

The bad: for a serious movie, the audience was laughing quite a bit. Nothing ever seemed to really happen throughout the nearly two hour movie other than, as another moviegoer mentioned, there was an abundance of sunrises and sunsets. The sex scene was just odd, the ending abrupt, and the plot unsatisfying.

No one else in the theater had anything truly good to say about the movie. Here are a few examples of statements made:

Credits start rolling: "That's it?", "You've got to be kidding me", "Seriously?", "That was awful" and just general laughter.

Crowd outside of the theater/in the bathroom: "What a waste of $10.50"

So it is clear that just about everyone who was at the same showing as me was not a fan of this movie by any means. I could see some people enjoying this...sort of? It was slow, flippant, awkward, and rushed. I'd hate to say it but it might have been better if a bit longer, to have a bit more going on. But I don't know how much that would have really helped. Honestly, I enjoyed the bonding of experiencing a truly bad movie together above everything else. I really hope that the book is better...it usually is.

Final verdict: Only see it if you REALLY want to...and maybe wait to watch it at home?

Title: My Cousin Rachel
Author: Daphne du Maurier
Page Count: 391
Keywords: Mystery, Inheritance, Death
Genre: Fiction
Younger Readers: Same as above.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin!

-From the first page...the reader is back in the moody, brooding atmosphere of Rebecca.- -The New York Times

From the bestselling author of Rebecca, another classic set in beautiful and mysterious Cornwall.

Philip Ashley's older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son, has died in Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose's beautiful English estate, is crushed that the man he loved died far from home. He is also suspicious. While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear.

Now Rachel has arrived at Philip's newly inherited estate. Could this exquisite woman, who seems to genuinely share Philip's grief at Ambrose's death, really be as cruel as Philip imagined? Or is she the kind, passionate woman with whom Ambrose fell in love? Philip struggles to answer this question, knowing Ambrose's estate, and his own future, will be destroyed if his answer is wrong.

Bonus Reading Group Guide Included

Praise for Daphne du Maurier

-Miss du Maurier is... a storyteller whose sole aim is to bewitch and beguile. And in My Cousin Rachel she does both, with Rebecca looking fondly over her shoulder.- -- New York Times

-Double-distilled readers' delight.- -- Manchester Guardian