2022 ONTD Reading Challenge discussion

A discussion post for anyone reading Jaws by Peter Benchley

"Relentless terror." The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The classic, blockbuster thriller of man-eating terror that inspired the Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again -- or for the first time!

I decided to be a little ambitious and try to do two books this month since I finished my first one pretty early. This is one of my favorite films and I've never read the book so I'm interested to see some of the differences. I've heard this is one of the few exceptions of the film being better than the book that it's adapted from but I'm curious none the less. Just got it from the library!

The film is definitely better than the book. I'll wait until you finish it to discuss it with you.

Yeah I heard that they spend a little too much time on (view spoiler)[an affair that really no one gives a crap about (hide spoiler)] in the book. I just started it but I'm reading another book at the same time so I'm only about 30 pages in right now. Meanwhile the copy I got is a super tiny hardcover.

Yea. The best I can say is that for a book called Jaws, they should have focused more on that.

I just finished reading Jaws, I love the movie and I did enjoy the book but I feel like I enjoyed it better if I thought if it as separate to the movie.

‪83 pages left in this book and we finally hear the name Quint for the first time... we don't see him but he's mentioned.

Spielberg basically took the interesting parts of a boring book and made a fantastic movie.

Pretty much. I just finished it during lunch and I was kind of underwhelmed. Like it isn't a bad book by any means but I personally found it boring. I don't see what's so special about it that made it be on the bestseller list for such a long time and what was so amazing about the first 100 pages that got him a crazy advance back in the 70s. They really are two completely separate entities but overall this is one of the few times that I felt the film was superior. If memory serves correctly Benchley actually wrote the screenplay as well so I wonder if he just realized that it wouldn't make for an interesting film or what. It's been a while since I've actually watched the docs on Jaws so I might have to revisit that.

I feel weird using spoiler cuts for such an old book that was adapted into one of the most popular films of all time so I'm just going to put this out here. I do like the change that Hooper actually survives in the movie though it also kind of cements the idea that he really was only killed off because of the affair... no affair in the film and he gets to live.

I feel that Part 2 could have been completely omitted from the book and I still think it would have been boring. Less so but still boring.
The affair seemed so jarring to me and most of the characters were unlikeable to me.
I was watching BTS of Jaws and the author said 'If they read this more than once, they probably wouldn't have made it'. I would agree with him.