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A review by doughtah
The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus
5.0
The Shape of Water is a story about change and sex. Love is in there, too, but there are more passages explicitly sexual in nature with no love in them and I thought this was an important point to make for anyone thinking about reading this book.
That being said, it's also very much about change and the acceptance of differences. The story begins in the Amazon where the slow decay of a soldier continues. Eventually, the story moves to Baltimore, USA -- a city in the beginnings of the Civil Rights Era. The POV begins to switch between more characters, giving the reader glimpses into different parts of the story. There was one character in particular whose story was not in the movie and it was interesting to see them get a lot of growth in their own right.
There were a total of 7 POV characters, all offering their own prejudices and presumptions about themselves, the other characters, and the world. Personally, I really enjoyed seeing more particularly what the movie had hinted at being explicitly shown in the book.
This book is a novelization of a movie. But, it differed sometimes from the movie, particularly in the ending. I can't quite decide whether I liked the more ambiguous ending that the movie offered or if I like the more concrete answer from the book.
As someone who enjoyed the movie, I was a bit biased going in. I think, though, that even if you haven't seen the movie, you'd still enjoy the book. It's a fairytale with long descriptions (this is one of the few critiques I have of it, the descriptions were very long and I feel like that could def turn some folks off) and if you like that sort of story, I can't recommend The Shape of Water enough.
That being said, it's also very much about change and the acceptance of differences. The story begins in the Amazon where the slow decay of a soldier continues. Eventually, the story moves to Baltimore, USA -- a city in the beginnings of the Civil Rights Era. The POV begins to switch between more characters, giving the reader glimpses into different parts of the story. There was one character in particular whose story was not in the movie and it was interesting to see them get a lot of growth in their own right.
There were a total of 7 POV characters, all offering their own prejudices and presumptions about themselves, the other characters, and the world. Personally, I really enjoyed seeing more particularly what the movie had hinted at being explicitly shown in the book.
This book is a novelization of a movie. But, it differed sometimes from the movie, particularly in the ending. I can't quite decide whether I liked the more ambiguous ending that the movie offered or if I like the more concrete answer from the book.
As someone who enjoyed the movie, I was a bit biased going in. I think, though, that even if you haven't seen the movie, you'd still enjoy the book. It's a fairytale with long descriptions (this is one of the few critiques I have of it, the descriptions were very long and I feel like that could def turn some folks off) and if you like that sort of story, I can't recommend The Shape of Water enough.