#BlackLoveBooks Challenge Day 4: Fantasy: a fantasy-based novel with a love connection.

Now I will admit that fantasy is not my thing at all. I can watch fantasy/sci-fi movies and TV shows for hours on end, (I’m looking at you Game of Thrones and Lost; not you Lord of the Rings), but reading the genre feels like a chore, or even punishment.

I picked up a copy of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle almost as soon as it was announced that Ava DuVernay was tapped to direct the movie adaptation. I’m a DuVernay fan and knew I’d be watching the movie, even before seeing a trailer. The book is a classic, so of course I’d heard of it prior to this, I’d just never read it. Whenever I know a movie is based on a book (so many have slipped through the cracks), I try to read the book before watching the movie—if I’m interested. The book sat on my shelf for months, until I finally reached for it two weeks before the movie’s premiere.

Wrinkle is a children’s book and should be an easy read. Try as I might, I could not finish it. I made it past the halfway mark, perhaps even three-fourths. From the opening, it’s apparent that love will be all up and through the book. Meg’s heart is broken by the absence of her father. She loves her missing father so much she universe-hops to find him and bring him home. There’s also the juvenile romance between her and a friend, and the love and protectiveness an older sister has for a younger brother.

Forgive me, fellow book nerds, but this is the first time I’m saying this: the movie was better than the book. I say this even though I didn’t finish the book. At first I was ashamed that I didn’t or couldn’t, but when I posted my failure to read it, several people commented that it was the same for them. Also, I guess I should acknowledge that when I read A Wrinkle in Time, I did not imagine Meg and her family to be black, but in Ava’s adaptation she is, so here we are.

This post is in correspondence with the Instagram #BlackLoveBooks Challenge by @booksandbrunchbookclub.