Peter Benchley: JAWS

Jaws... I have seen the movie uncountable times, at least once a year for the past 8 years (my boyfriend is a real big fan). Of course I knew, that the movie was based on this book, however, I did not know, that the book was written only a year before the screening started. I thought, the book was much older, because I knew it was losely based on the happenings from 1916 in New Jersey. I got the book last year on christmas, but was told to wait until it was summer with reading it, so here is my review:

Chief Brody is leading a quiet life in Amity with his wife and their three kids. His wife is not as happy as he is, as she is originally not from the island, and she misses her former life sometimes really hard. It is somewhen in early summer, when a young girl is killed in the waters surrounding Amity, most propably by a shark. Brody wants to close the beaches immediately but is persuaded to leave them open in order to prevent the soon approaching town guests from staying away. But other people are killed as well, and soon Brody is caught between two stools - safe the town, safe lifes...

So together with the oceanographer Hooper and the local fisherman Quint Brody sets out to find and kill the shark...

Book and movie differ in a few ways, so is family Brody not so harmonic as it seems in the film, Mrs. Brody has a bit on the side, and the chief wants to find out desperately with whom. In the movie the three hunters stay overnight on the boat, whereas in the book they return each evening. In the film everyone tries to find the shark, in the book I had the impression, that only the three main characters are searching for the shark. In the movie the bad going summer season is not really picked as a central theme whereas it plays a huge role in the book... 

I had my problems with the books, I did not like the characters as much as I like the ones in the film, I did not like it, that the Brodys have problems, I did not like Hooper at all (not one bit), and last but not least, the shark really plays not a big role. I award 7 out of 10.

Now I am reading Miss Peregrine`s home for peculiar children by Ransom Riggs.