As a kid, I hated reading . . . chapter books. Why should I sit for hours, looking at a dead tree with dark ink on it, and no pictures? I couldn’t bring myself to spend my time reading a chapter book when I could be reading a graphic novel or a picture book. It came as no surprise that I adored going to the movie theater. Every time a new Disney movie came out, I would beg my mom to take me to see it. Honestly, it didn’t even need to be a Disney movie. I would go watch anything if it meant I could sit in those comfy seats with way too much popcorn and soda for a kid.
Now that I’m older, I love reading . . . chapter books. I would rather read a written-out story than a graphic novel, even if that meant it would take longer to get through. I still love the movies, but now that it’s junior year and I don’t have much free time, I don’t watch them very much. Consequently, I don’t read very much recreationally either. This makes for an odd combination, where I love both mediums of storytelling, but I just can’t seem to find the time.
In my middle school years, I read tons of books, and every book I read, I would check if there was a movie or TV show for it, and if there was, I knew how I was spending my Friday night. Not at football games, or with friends, but sitting in my room watching The Giver on my school Chromebook.
At my current age, as a reader, my complicated schedule puts me in quite the predicament. I don’t have the time to read very much, let alone a 600-page book whose movie is coming out in theatres next week. But it made me ask myself the question: Should I still go see the movie?
Jacque Seidl, ADM’s Librarian, is a huge reader and she prefers to read a book before seeing a movie almost 100% of the time. “I think it gives you background knowledge and I’m that annoying person who will lean over to the person next to me who had not read the book and say, ‘Oh in the book, this is what happens,'” Seidl said.
Background knowledge can make or break a movie, depending on how accurate the movie adaptation is. For Seidl, a few of her favorite books have had very poor adaptations, and ruined the movie for her. The worst adaptation Seidl has ever seen had a completely different ending than the book did. “You’re sitting there prepared for this twist, but when you’re expecting it to be the one and then they change it. I went from crying to just angry. How could they do that?” Seidl said. She still holds a grudge against the filmmakers to this day–15 years after seeing the movie.
This example opens up a question of: How involved should an author be in their movie adaptation? Many authors of series choose to give the rights of their movies with restrictions of how much they can change and keeping them in the writing and producing process. Some examples are Alice Oseman of Heartstopper, Stan Lee of the Marvel Universe, and many others.
“You’ll see authors doing little cameos in their movies, I think it’s really cool. If I wrote a book, I would want to be in the background of a scene,” Seidl shares. An example of an author cameo is Emily Henry, who is seen in her adaptation of People We Meet On Vacation, which came out earlier in 2026 on Netflix.
Contrarily, there are a plethora of great movie adaptations. Junior Tucker Krug enjoys casual reading. Krug isn’t a huge movie watcher and prefers to read a book instead, as well as reading books before watching a movie. His favorite movie made from a book is The Lord of the Rings. “I watched the movies first, then read the books. [When reading the books] you really have to grasp how long it took. In the movies, it seems like they did it in a week, but it was almost a year from the books,” Krug shared.
Raya Wiederien is also a junior, but she’s not a movie watcher. Wiederien enjoys reading in her free time, but doesn’t necessarily read books before going to see a movie. While wildly popular and new release Project Hail Mary just came out in theatres, Wiederien doesn’t plan on going to see it or reading the book, sharing that for her, “It’s not a super big deal.”
Seidl, on the other hand, loved Project Hail Mary, both the film and the book. She described it as a “wonderful adaptation of the book,” sharing, “I loved the book. I actually listened to the audiobook, so I would suggest if you want to see the movie, you should listen to the audiobook first.”
Junior Cora Hall considers herself a film enthusiast, but not a huge reader. She watched Project Hail Mary this past week and she shared that she adored the movie, without having read the book. She didn’t feel like she was missing any details in the story, but rather adored the cinematography and other aspects of the film. “I’m going back to see it next week. That’s how good it is,” Hall said.
I am constantly on the fence of whether to wait and read books before seeing the movie, but because of my insane schedule and course load, I think that it’s worth it to consume the media that you can at the time. If that means that I don’t have time in my week to read a 300-page book before going to the theater to see a movie, then I am not going to deny myself the experience of seeing the movie in theaters.
What’s Poppin’?: Episode 2 explores deeper into Streaming vs. Cinema experiences, and whether it’s worth it to go to theaters or just wait for it to come out on streaming. I believe that theaters are worth the experience, especially if a movie is culturally significant in pop culture, such as Wicked, Barbie, or Project Hail Mary. I would rather experience a movie and decide to go back and read the book before depriving myself of the same joy I felt as a kid when I went to the movie theaters.
