Monday, May 13, 2013

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Description
"Relentless terror." The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The classic, blockbuster thriller of man-eating terror that inspired the Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again -- or for the first time!
Everybody should know about Jaws by now so I shouldn't have to explain in too much detail. There's a big great white shark off the beaches of Amity. It starts eating people because it's hungry.

And I can't believe it but... I liked the movie better. This has only happened to me 3 times so I feel like the odds are still really good that "the book will be better" in general. But not in this case. Or these books. But, to be fair, Jaws is one of my favorite movies so... seeing as it isn't much like the movie it didn't really have a chance.

I hated just about all of the characters... nope, scratch that, I hated all of the characters at one point or another. There was some suspense when it came to the shark attacks but for the most part it focused on the crappy behavior of the people involved. I suppose it was a study about people's behavior in situations that threaten the livelihood of a small summer town, but I could have skipped it. In fact, I did skip some pages here and there. There was no difference. I didn't have a connection with any of the characters that would make me care about them so when they were eaten I thought that sucks for them, but that was about it.

The shark is just being a shark (though the scene when it attacks the boat... crazy!) and it is hardly the evil villain it's made out to be in the movie. Also, you'll learn a lot about sharks and fish so there's that.

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