Horrible book

I love to read books/short stories/plays that have been made into movies (preferrably before watching the movies), I guess to note the differences and try to figure out why those differences were made - to try to get in the creative mind of the filmmaker. Nine times out of ten, the book is way better than the movie. I mean, there is just a LOT that has to be cut out of a book to get it down to approximately two hours and rarely is one able to get attached to the characters in a movie like one can in a book. Anyway, I read this book the last couple of days that HAS to be one of the few where the movie is way better. And I haven't even seen the movie yet.

I'm talking about Just Like Heaven, which is a little romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. It comes out on video/DVD next week and it turns out it was based on a book called If Only It Were True by Marc Levy. I found this out and the book was only 229 pages so I thought it would be a pretty quick read and I requested it from the library. Not only was it a quick read, but it was also an awful read. I don't remember reading a book so bad... since, well, some Christian fiction book one of my friends made me read when I was in a book club a couple years ago. Ugh.

The overall plot of the story is kind of interesting and romantic, I guess, but the writing is so corny and stupid that you just don't care. The auxiliary characters that are introduced are irritating. I swear the same dialogue is used over and over and over again... I could go on. Why didn't I just put the book down and not finish it, you ask? A valid question, to be sure, but it was such a fast read that I figured I might as well get to the end - even though the end was incredibly predictable. I just cannot fathom how this stupid novel became an "international bestseller" as it claims OR how the author got what undoubtedly was a huge sum to have this drivel turned into a movie. Ironically though, I'm sure it will make a decent movie, though. It's one of those books that seems like it was written all along with the intent of being made into a movie, with even the author writing as if he was transcribing a movie.