Love, Rosie // Book-to-Movie Review

Hello, everyone! Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I got to celebrate my youngest nephew’s first birthday and we all had a blast watching him dig into the family birthday cake. It was adorable and we got a lot of great photos of him covered in frosting! 🙂

I’m excited to share a book-to-movie review with all of you today! I think I’ve done this before, but I want to do it more often and be more intentional about reading the books before I watch a movie so that I can compare and contrast. I’ve never been too critical with movies that are based off of books. I expect them to be different since they’re two different mediums, so I usually don’t care if they make changes as long as the story still shines through. So, without further ado, here’s my first book-to-movie review!

Told through letters, emails, cards and IM’s, Love, Rosie follows Rosie Dunne and her best friend Alex from age seven though adulthood. While their friends and family have always seen a strong connection between Rosie and Alex, the pair wonders if anything is in the cards for the two of them.

This was my second time reading this novel. The first time I read it I almost put it down–epistolary novels have never been my favorite. But I was so glad that I read it because I ended up loving this book. This year I knew I’d pick it up again because the movie was released and I wanted to refresh my memory. I loved it just as much the second time through.

I think the epistolary format of this novel was perfect. While it centers around Rosie, I love that the reader gets a peak into what others were thinking and doing through their letters and emails. I also thought that we were able to get to know each of the characters so well due to the format. I can think of little details about each character that made them come to life. It also allows this story to span a great period of time, which is one of the things I loved about this book; the chance to follow these characters through so much of their life.

Both times that I read the book I thought that it gets a little long, but the ending is so rewarding that I never really cared. I loved that we got to follow these characters through their lives, through so many ups and downs. It’s a really cool book!

I watched the movie twice after reading the book. The first time I hated it, but it was late at night and I had just finished the book, so I thought that was probably too soon after reading it.

There were a lot of changes, of course. With any book that has to happen, but with this one in particular, the book wouldn’t have been able to fit into a movie. Some characters weren’t in the movie and I missed them! There were some characters that I didn’t connect to as much because we just didn’t have the time to get to know them.

There were some changes that I really didn’t understand. For instance, characters were added who really didn’t add anything to the story. And there were some plot points that I would have liked to have seen changed. One event in particular didn’t have the same impact in the movie because there wasn’t as much time to form connections.

The filmmakers did a great job of including some important events in the lives of both Rosie and Alex, but doing it in a succinct way. I wasn’t sure how they would manage to fit it all into the film, but I thought these events should be included. Changes were made (of course), but they were fantastic because they allowed for these Big Things in the book to take place in the movie.

The first time I watched the movie was right after I finished the book and, like I said earlier, I hated it. I think, since I loved the book so much, I was still too close to it. But it’s the type of movie that I’d generally like, so I watched it again a day later and I really enjoyed it. In fact, now when I look back on it I think that this is a story that was told in two different ways, and that’s kind of fun.

I think if you liked the premise of Love, Rosie but weren’t able to get into the book, the movie might be a good option for you! If you liked the book, you’ll probably enjoy watching it come to life. I thought that Rosie and Alex were perfectly cast and everyone else did great too!

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