Movies are flying out, and each one appears to be fantastic, but many people don’t know which ones are based on books. Do you read the book first or go see the movie with all your friends? Books are the best present you can get, one you can open again and again, for one flat rate, not paying repeatedly. So, read the book first.

Reading the book first allows the movie viewer to truly evaluate the quality of the movie. Take The Hunger Games for example, packed into 142 minutes is the action of 384 pages, there seems to be no way for all the great scenes to be included in the movie. Gary Ross proved the audience wrong, and wowed author Suzanne Collins.

“I’m really happy with how it turned out. I feel like the book and the film are individual yet complementary pieces that enhance one another,” Collins said on her Facebook.

But, the book made the movie phenomenal, the movie didn’t make the book phenomenal. Katniss is filled with conflicting emotions shown on the screen, but developed in Collins’ original writing: the book.

Although movies put a face to the character within the book, wouldn’t you rather picture the character in your head, making each one to fit the build you think it should? Isn’t one of the purposes of reading a book to have the reader experience one planned by the author, but  different for each reader? Watching the movie gives a uniform view on what each character is ‘supposed’ to look like.

For instance, everyone who read Life of Pi knows that Pi is an Indian boy, but that doesn’t mean he has to be one with big, bushy hair. This image is plastered in your head, and it ‘has to be right since the movie made it that way.’ Also by reading the book for Life of Pi, you’d know that many scenes are inaccurate or completely made up.

Many movies leave out important scenes from the book, but to know this you need to have read the book, or just have a sister who tells you all the scenes missing – but really you should read the book.