S2S February - Dear John

Our February book club selection was "Dear John" by Nicholas Sparks. Heather had originally planned to host the evening and selected the book because it was coming to theatres. Again, the premise of our book club (Script to Screen) is reading a book that has been turned into a movie and then watching the movie as a group. Not everyone has a large enough home to comfortably accommodate the group (or a tv big enough to make viewing fun) Heather got clearance from the group to host the night at the theatre (our goal is to make this venture as low cost as possible so she had to have support for everyone to pay for a night at the movies, which we all readily gave). Just after the plans were finalized, Heather got the chance to go stay with her parents in Texas for a few weeks while her husband was out of town. I stepped in as hostess for the month because I don’t have a decent tv either. It worked out great though.

So Tuesday, February 23rd we all met at the movie theatre. The movie changes the ending of the book, but we all agreed that we liked it better. It was more "Hollywoodized" but it left you with a better feeling.

One thing that I really picked up on that wouldn't have had the same impact for others was the images of coins throughout the movie. The main character's father is a coin collector. After having spent so much time at the Royal Canadian Mint pavillion the night before, I found it fascinating to see the coins on the big screen.

After the movie we went to Tim Hortons where we discussed the book and it's movie adaptation in depth. I had sent out copies of the questions from Nicholas Sparks' website and we used those to direct the conversation. I loved hearing everyone's take on the book.

I also had a sheet of quotes from the website and we discussed them and if we agreed or not.

As favours I bought salt water taffy, which seemed "beachy" to me and added a tag from the scrapbook store.

Our next book club selection is "Runaway Jury" and I've already been "summoned" for jury duty. I'll let you know how it goes ;)