Welcome to another news round-up post. This post is about two days late *coughoneweekandtwodayslatecough* but I am still excited about these news.
Challenger Deep Movie Rights Acquired by Chernin
First up is a movie adaptation news. Neal Shusterman’s book about a boy dealing with schizophrenia, Challenger Deep, has been acquired by Chernin Entertainment. Neal is supposedly going to co-produce and adapt the screenplay.
My reaction?
I am excited because movie adaptation means more recognition about this very important issue, namely mental illness. However, I am also worried. Challenger Deep is a very “visual” book. The power of the book came through vivid description of what Caden experienced as well as illustration drawn by Neal’s son, Brendan who had to deal with schizophrenia himself. I hope the movie can do it justice. It’s still in early stage though so maybe I shouldn’t worry about it too much. More details about the movie here
Speaking of Challenger Deep, the book itself recently won the National Book Award. If you’re looking for a book tackling mental illness, specifically schizophrenia, I highly recommend Challenger Deep. It’s written from first person perspective and it alternates between real world and Caden’s journey as a crew member in a ship bound for the Marianas Trench. It’s truly dark and heartbreaking.
The only thing you have for measuring what’s real is your mind . . . so what happens when your mind becomes a pathological liar?
There are the voices, and visual hallucinations when it’s really bad—but “being there” isn’t about voices or seeing things. It’s about believing things. Seeing one reality, and believing it’s something else entirely.
…
The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you’re suddenly going to believe.
Veronica Roth’s New Book
Veronica Roth, the author of Divergent series, recently talked about her upcoming book. Finally, the news that her fans have been waiting for!
Here’s a description from her tumblr:
So. My new book is a sci-fi fantasy story set in a time of extreme political unrest (hence the “Star Wars” comparisons you might have heard!). In it a boy named Akos, along with his brother, is kidnapped and brought to an enemy nation. When the dictator of that place threatens his brother’s life, Akos has no choice but to work with a girl named Cyra (the dictator’s sister), to save him. But Cyra’s trust—and her kindness!—are difficult to earn…to put it mildly. And the intense friendship Akos and Cyra form puts them in more danger than they could ever have imagined
More information to come the closer we get to 2017!
Source: Veronica Roth’s Tumblr
That’s all for today. Let me know what you think about the upcoming Veronica Roth book. And tell me if you have read or plan to read Challenger Deep. Are you excited for the movie?
Windie
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I have read Challenger Deep, and thought it was very well written, even though it’s the type of book I normally avoid. I hadn’t thought of how oddly this book might transfer to the screen until you mentioned it. Hopefully the author being so involved will give this story the proper execution it deserves.
I hope so. The book made me feel uneasy (in a good way if that makes sense) and I truly hope the film could deliver.
Yes, I understand what you mean. This book as a very unique structure that makes you feel odd because like the main character, it’s sometimes hard to tell which parts of the story are in his reality and which are his hallucinations even with the hallucinations being so improbable.
Exactly! When I read the later chapters when he started having problem believing which one is real and began to blend reality-hallucination, I cannot tell for certain which timeline I was on, which characters were real etc.