Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Among many things, I am someone who some would say is a mover and a shaker (my mom told me that once and I'm owning it). Sitting, relaxing, focusing on one task at a time, and taking my sweet time to do something that could be done in 30 seconds just doesn't appeal to me. And never did. And likely never will.

So when Christmas rolled around this year and the dreaded 4 hour solo road trip home was ahead of me, I felt the panic creeping into my brain. 4 HOURS OF WASTED TIME. Shoot me now.

No co-pilot (Sorry Sofi, you're not a human), no writing lists of things to do, no googling new recipes, or tweezing of the brows. And no reading. Therefore, no self-improvement and no entertainment (save one new Pearl Jam CD).

Let's just say I didn't have the greatest of expectations for this trip (wink, wink).

So in a last ditch effort to expand my mind I made a pit stop to Chapters and sifted through their entire selection of books on CD trying to find a book from my list. Shocking to me, Great Expectations was the only classic that they had and it was one that I had been looking forward to actually reading with my eyes not my ears. However, when your choices are Great Expectations or Hard and Fast and there are several prim and proper judgers standing behind you, you go for the former.

Hard and Fast will be much cheaper on Amazon. 

So off I ventured, with my soy venti latte, my trusty sidekick Sofi, Charles Dickens, and the open road.

Great Expecations has been my all time favorite movie since I was 13 years old. The version with Ethan Hawke and Gwenyth Paltrow shaped most of my tragic teenage romances and many of the disillusions that I hold dear to my heart still. Come on, the talented artist fighting for the love of a stone cold fox?? Sign me up!

But just because we love a movie, doesn't mean we will love the book. And just because your 14 year old boyfriend doodled Sonic the Hedgehog on your notebook, doesn't mean he will become a famous artist and paint pictures of you in the nude in New York City.

For once in my life, the movie has trumped the book. Ding ding ding! This round goes to Alliance Films! I think it was the way that I've felt about the movie for so long, and the colors of green that surround every emotion in the film that captured my heart.

The story is fascinating and definitely deeper and more complex in the book but my dislike for the old lady remains the same. I loved this part:

"And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?"

So there it is. I 'technically' didn't read this one.

Call me a liar. Call me a cheat.

Call me a multitasker while I select my next book, fry up some chickpea burgers, give Sofi a bath, and give these brows a tweeze. All at once.