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I usually dislike movie adaptations of books. When books are changed into screenplays, much of the detail and experience is cut out in the name of movie magic. For beloved books that I can recite, I cringe when I notice important lines of dialogue have been reconfigured. Most recently, I was disappointed by the film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. I couldn’t sit through the film, while the novel is one of my favorite all-time books. On the other hand, one of my favorite film adaptations is the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice. They managed to preserve dialogue and characters beautifully. You just have to dedicate six hours of your life to watching it (which I have done too many times to count).

In fact, I can’t get into books-to-television adaptations either. I read Under the Dome when it first came out in hardcover, and I loved it. It had me right from the opening scene: a peaceful woodchuck minding his own business is suddenly sliced in half by the randomly appearing dome in Chester’s Mill. When the television series was announced, I was extremely excited. Then I saw the first episode. In which a peaceful cow minding his own business is suddenly sliced in half by the dome. Seriously. I know that changes are made for the sake of film adaptations of books all of the time. But did they have to change the woodchuck to a cow? It went downhill for me from there, and I gave up watching the series.

Maybe my expectations for the books to movies transformation are just unfair. What adaptations can you just not stand? Which ones seem to hold up to the text and leave you cringe-free? Leave your experiences in the comments!