Young adult fiction seems to have taken center stage in Hollywood in the last few years. We’ve already seen comic book adaptations like Superman, Batman and most other ‘-man’ type heroes, and with their success it comes as no surprise to see the movie industry cashing in on the most dedicated cult-following fans.  I think it’s marvelous that people are reading as much as they are now (thank you, Harry Potter?), but I do have to raise an eyebrow at some of the crazes. Namely, Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. Hmm, how funny: FSoG was actually a Twilight fan fiction.

On a more positive note, I just discovered that two of the YA books I read this past year have been given movie deals: City of Bones and Matched. I wrote a previous entry about Matched by Ally Condie, and may have mentioned City of Bones… either way — these are both books featuring strong female characters in some type of futuristic, fantastic society. I enjoyed Matched quite a bit, and I’m currently working my way through the second entry of the series, Crossed. City of Bones took me a bit longer, but I have several subsequent books in the series and it’s all just a matter of time before I make my way through them.

In the meantime, I wanted to post links to some announcements I discovered from the Page to Premiere Network, which follows books through the movie-making process (hence the name).

Matched has a director

Image of the cast for City of Bones

It seems as though the only way to make blockbuster movies anymore is to get teenagers hormones raging for some steamy heart-throb. Don’t get me wrong, I know many of us enjoy and often appreciate the adaptations of our favorite books into movies, but I feel like there has been a huge generation of literature that has just been skipped over. Now, a book just has to be a number one seller on Amazon and, like a badge of honor, it gets a movie contract. Am I the only one NOT excited about a Fifty Shades of Grey adaptation? I haven’t read the series, so I have little room to judge, but from what I’ve heard, this will not bode well…

And while we’re on the subject of books-to-movies: In my next entry, I will review Peter Benchley’s Jaws and compare it to Steven Spielberg’s adaptation.