CBR6 #7: The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

Here are ten things you need to know about The Silver Linings Playbook:

1)   It’s not exactly like the movie, but it’s not far off either.

2)   You will see the faces of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence super-imposed on the main characters of Pat and Tiffany if you’ve seen the movie first. It just can’t be stopped.

3)   The mental illness portrayed in the book is far more expressive and understandable than how the film related it – at times to a frustrating degree.

4)   Pat and Tiffany are not the only people who ought to be on meds. Pat’s Dad and Mom are a real mind-bender too.

5)   Chris Tucker’s character doesn’t appear until almost the end – and I think that is a loss.

6)   If you love football, then maybe you’ll follow all the game speak in this book better than I did.

7)   The character of Tiffany in the book is more fully realized, through the eyes of Pat, than in the movie. I’d say the same goes for Pat’s character as well.

8)   Yet somehow, I found the movie much more enjoyable. It is a difficult feeling to explain -- one I don’t encounter often considering my near-religious “the book was better” stance.

9)   I disliked Pat’s child-like way of writing “apart time” to signify his time away from his wife. It made me twitch every time.

10) If you are a fan of a team that constantly loses, you are a masochist. Stop it.

The read was quite a breeze, but I think because I’ve seen the movie, it was difficult for me to think of the book as a separate entity in my mind, and I found myself trying to find specific moments from the film. It can be a bit disorienting. 

I'm reading and reviewing for Pajiba's Cannonball Read 6, so this review also appears on their website.