The Top 10 Best Movies Based on Young Adult Novels
Hollywood Just Can’t Get Enough of Young Adult Novels.
The one thing I can say about millennials is that they’re lucky just how many damn young adult novels are out there these days. It feels like every other year there’s a new craze helping to drag simple minded folks (like myself) off the couch and into bookstores. For those of you who hate reading words on paper like some sort of caveman, Hollywood has never been one to let a popular craze get away with its dignity still intact. In other words, as popular as young adult novels might be, movies based on those novels are bigger than ever. While there have been more than a few that have made me shudder in horror at the very idea of them, the amount of love and care seen put into these movies is actually pretty uplifting. Some things are sacred and that goes double for fandoms out there. So, let’s take a moment to remember that there’s nothing better than a good book (even I will admit it’s usually better than the movie) and pay our respects to the 10 Best Movies Based on Young Adult Novels!
*Special Note: I’m not dividing up series for this list otherwise half of these entries would belong to J.K. Rowling. So, franchises count as one each (even the bad entries).*
10. The Hunger Games
Since the new millennium girl power has been slowly gaining traction on the pages of books and on the big screen. No other young adult novels proved this better than The Hunger Games. I wasn’t a huge fan of the series personally, I really liked Catching Fire and thought that it was an awesome movie. While Jennifer Lawrence has since oversaturated the movie market by appearing in pretty much everything since then, I still look back fondly on what was easily her debut into the big leagues as an A-lister. She proved herself to be the very embodiment backwoods heroine Katniss Everdeen who is just at home fixin’ her famous squirrel stew as she is saving a dystopian world from the evil 1%. Needless to say, she’s kind of a badass. Since this series, the odds have always been in her favor.
9. The Fault in Our Stars
Shailene Woodley is making her first appearance on this list of the best adapted young adult novels in the film that made everyone sob like little babies. The novel is about young love with what might be the darkest twist ever, terminal cancer. These days it’s hard not to find someone whose life hasn’t been affected by this disease, which is probably why this movie resonated so well with audiences. I’m not going to spoil the ending for you, but cancer doesn’t really believe in happy ones. Still, it’s a heartwarming tale about stopping to smell the flowers even when there doesn’t seem like any point to it. Plus, it stars Ansel Elgort who was absolutely phenomenal in Baby Driver, so you know he’s a charming bastard in this movie too.
8. Warm Bodies
Twilight was once a blight on young adult novels and theaters everywhere. Vampires were turned from creatures of the night to sparkle f&*@ bois. Luckily, Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion managed to not only make fun of the whole idea of supernatural love stories like Twilight but also managed to show them how it’s really done. The film stars a young Nicholas Holt as a zombie who slowly regains his humanity when he falls in love with a living girl (Teresa Palmer). The thing is that humans and zombies aren’t really on great terms, so their love is a forbidden one (eat your heart out Romeo & Juliet). Like I said, this movie makes this list because it really shows what total garbage Twilight is on every possible level. Plus, it’s just a really great date night movie.
7. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Growing up is hard to do, especially once hormones get involved. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is all about how awkward it is being a teenager. There’s no romanticized idea of the freedom and endless possibilities that come with high school. Instead, you’re just kind of at a loss for everything. This is easily one of the most popular young adult novels out there, and it even managed to find itself on a few college syllabuses after it came out. So, there was a lot of pressure to get this right on the big screen. Luckily the trio of Ezra Miller, Logan Lerman, and Emma Watson (who is going to definitely going to make another appearance on this list) proved to have exactly what was needed to make this a big screen success.
6. Love, Simon
Growing up is tough and growing up in the closet is even tougher. I certainly can’t comment on what life might be like for those who struggled with their sexual identities, but I’ll say I must have had it easier than them any day of the week. Luckily, 2018 has managed to be a pretty woke year at the movies (all things considered) and Love, Simon managed to earn a spot on this list of best movies based on young adult novels. The lead character is Simon, a closeted gay character struggling to come to terms with who he is on his own terms. Of course, this can make a love life next to impossible in high school, until he manages to get a love story of his own. The only downside is that he has to hide his feelings from everyone close to him, except for an anonymous love interest he met on his high school message board. Definitely a must-see movie.