Book Girl Talks the Movie – Ruby Red

For Christmas, I was kindly gifted a box set that included all three novels in the Precious Stones trilogy. This included Ruby Red, Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green.

After taking approximately a week to finish all three books, I was then informed that all three of these books have already been produced and made into three individual movies!

Basically you can imagine my happiness and excitement to watch these movies! Although there was one small little problem... They similarly to the books were actually German... So basically I had three options, learn German, have my cousin translate the whole movie or watch the movie with English voice overs. It’s probably pretty obvious which one I decided to do! So moral of the story, I can now speak German! Haha, just kidding. Although that would be realy cool!

If you would like to check out my review on all the books, just click on the title link :)

Ruby Red, Sapphire Blue & Emerald Green 

So now into how I feel about the movie...

Apart from my obvious confusion about how the actor’s mouths were saying something in German while the voice over was in English, I was actually quite disappointed with the movie. I felt as though the books were so amazing and in depth, while the movie only just scraped the surface of what actually happened within the books story line.

One thing that typically happens when I watch a book to movie adaptation is that I can follow the story line and I consistently know what each character is going to do next, or at least what should happen with the story line. But with this movie I felt completely in the dark... I was so genuinely confused the majority of the time and book one through three were all mixed up in the movie. Basically I was confused AF!

Gwyneth Shepherd

The actor who played the character Gwen was a good fit for the role. Sure, she wasn’t exactly who I pictured Gwen as, but she was pretty dang close. I really like how she was very pretty, but then compared to her cousin Charlotte admittedly she had to be ‘dressed down’ she actually looked plain. Which is exactly as the book described. Otherwise, I didn’t really feel the connection with Gwen’s onscreen character as much as I did with the character in the book. Although I did find this character a little lack-lustre, I was overall quite pleased.

Gideon de Villiers

This actor was yummy! Basically he was a great Gideon – at least physically he was. Personality wise all I can say is “W R O N G!” Everything about this character in the movie was completely and utterly incorrect. He was way too nice to Gwen. He wasn’t meant to kiss her all dramatically at the ball. Need I go on?! Because I could go on for a V E R Y long time about how wrong his character was! Basically, just no.

Charlotte Montrose

This actor was P E R F E C T! She was exactly as I imagined Charlotte and executed the role perfectly! She was bitchy and rude and stuck up and mean. Basically I just loved her as the actor for Charlotte! She was able to make you hate her while also feeling bad for her and it was amazing! Basically, as always, an A+ for Charlotte!

Lesley Hay

She was such an amazing character in the book, but I didn’t feel as attached to her as I did in the book. For starters, she had less on an impact on the story than she did in the book and also she looked completely wrong. In the book she was described as having millions of freckles and looking like a golden retriever... Sure, I still really love the Lesley character, but I feel like she had a way lesser impact in the movie than the book. But one thing I did love was the fact that she still did all of this research and had a huge folder to help her friend!

Overall, I feel like the story was completely messed up due to the way the three books were all smashed together to get a messy first movie in the series. Although I feel this way about the book, I am absolutely going to watch all of the other movies, Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green. I hope that as the movies go on, everything starts to make a lot more sense.  

Bloggers Note:

So this is actually the first time I have done a ‘Book Girl Talks the Movie’ post in ages! It feels good to do one again.

If you have watched Ruby Red or have read the book, please comment about how you feel about the movie compared to the book!

Anyway, thank you for reading this post and all keep an eye out for my next ‘Book Girl Talks the Movie’ post all about Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children!

Until next time, keep reading!

-Shelbi