Movie Review: The Giver

Last weekend, Ashley and I both got paychecks and proceeded to splurge. It made for an awesome weekend that included the following: me hanging out in a cafe (well...Einstein Bros. Bagels) like a true writer while Ashley finished up at the fruit stand; us visiting our cousin Naiya’s lemonade stand/charity, where (instead of a birthday party thrown in her honor) she raised over $400 and donated it all to the Humane Society of Utah!; Ashley learning how to navigate automatic car washes; and us ending our Saturday by going to see The Giver.

Not gonna lie, I didn’t want to see this movie. I really wanted to see Guardians of the Galaxy (and I still really want to--anyone want to take me?). My hesitation was due in part to the lukewarm reviews it’s gotten online and in part to my general dislike of movies adapted from books.

But I was pleasantly surprised. I went in there with such low expectations that I left feeling like I’d gotten more than I’d bargained for.

Here’s my points breakdown:

+1 for being (for the most part) true to the story’s message, if not to its exact details. It was very uplifting, very well-made, and good enough that I didn’t resent spending $7 to see it at Jordan Commons. I was especially happy that they did start it out black and white, and occasionally went back to black and white depending on the characters we were seeing. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, it was in color and I wanted to scream. I'm so glad they left that in. It was the coolest part of the book, realizing that Jonas had never seen color before he started receiving memories.

-1 for being too short. Ashley, who’s read the book three times (I’m pretty sure that’s the only book she’s read more than once), looked at me when the credits started rolling and said disappointedly, “It was so short.”  It should have been at least two hours, I think.

They didn’t explain why exactly Rosemary’s “release” ticked everyone off. I mean, that’s a very important part of the book, and is basically the only way the Giver knew his plan for Jonas would work.

And peoples’ motivations were just kind of rushed. We didn’t get enough of a feel for why people acted the way they did, besides the fact that “it’s a dystopia and the government made them that way.”

Like, why did that community leader lady know about murder and suffering yet oppose further Receiver training? Why were some infractions (like riding down a bridge on cafeteria trays) completely overlooked while others (like knowing a baby’s name before the ceremony) cause for serious alarm? We didn’t get enough sense of how the world worked besides the basic principles.

+1 for Jeff Bridges. He was amazing as the Giver.

-1 for the random cafeteria trays kept at the top of the random bridge in the middle of the community. I’m sorry, but that just made no sense. I wasn’t a huge fan of the love sidestory, either, but it did a good job of pointing out how sad it was that the community didn’t have love. In the book, Jonas is like 12 so he just noticed the lack of love between him and his “parents.”

+1 for the memory montages. Holy. Crow. Those were so beautiful every time that I kept tearing up. Whenever the stark, bland “utopia” of Jonas’s life was suddenly replaced by memories of the world as we know it, it was like a happy slap to the face. Life is awesome. The world we know now is awesome. I cried when Jonas heard music for the first time and saw memories of people dancing. The “courage and strength” montage the Giver gave Jonas right before he left made me feel so proud of the human race and so inspired to do something courageous with my life.

-1 for being made into a movie in the wake of The Hunger Games and Divergent. Even though it was a decent movie, I can see why those who haven’t read the book wouldn’t like it. They’d go in and think, “That was confusing. The Hunger Games was WAY better.”

It’s just a tragedy that this book, which was one of the first dystopian novels most of us ever read, is now being made in the middle of the dystopian YA hype, where there are so many “better” movies overshadowing it. (I say “better” because they’re all exciting and sort of thought-provoking, but none of them come close to the true message of The Giver. See the next point below.) I think it would've done much better if they hadn't aged up the characters and made it look just like every other dystopia movie coming out.

+1 for being so good at conveying the theme of the story that for the first time in my life I realized that The Giver is a metaphor of the choice made in the Garden of Eden. From all appearances, Eden was a perfect Utopia. No suffering, no sin, no bad weather, no pain. But without those things, there was also no true joy. No learning. No love.

Eve made the choice to bring all the bad things into the world so that the good things could also be in the world. "And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto the obedient" (Moses 5:11).

And seeing it as this movie portrayed it, I really wouldn’t have it any other way! Now I don’t know if the author of The Giver believes that Eve’s choice was against God’s plan or whatever, but she sure has a good understanding of why it was a good choice.

I believe that it was in God’s plan for Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit. I believe that not only because scripture supports it (see Moses 3:16-17), but also because I believe that God is perfect and loving. He wouldn’t have messed up with the very first people He put on the planet, and He wouldn’t want us to live in a world without true joy.

So anyways, when you total the points up, it looks like it gets… 1. But that’s not really fair. I’ll round it up and give it a solid 3.5 out of 5. With a book this good, it's gonna take a lot more effort and skill to make the perfect movie adaptation.

Freewrite: Dog Days

I've talked about my dogs, Jersey and Leo, before, and this week I'm especially missing them. I see dogs everywhere. When Ashley and I drive by Liberty Park, it's like watching a dog show. Even as I type, I'm in an Einstein Bros. Bagels in downtown Salt Lake City, and there are three dogs with their owners outside.

Usually I just have to watch from the sidelines as these dogs keep people company, but this week I actually got to interact with dogs for the first time in forever.

Actually, it was all just on Thursday. We went up to the McCompound to say goodbye to Evie and Wilson before they went back to Prague (sad day--thankfully I get to see them in about a month!). The McConkie grandparents let me pet their big beautiful schnauzer, Phoebe. She is a huge dog--tall enough that I don't have to bend over to pet her. And she's the most well-behaved dog I've ever met, too. When she was a puppy, the McConkies took her to an obedience boarding school. Now they tell her to sit and she will stay there patiently until otherwise told. Not a rebellious bone in her body. They take her to hospitals to work as a therapy dog. She's the sweetest thing.

They're not kidding when they call them "giant" schnauzers. These things are TALL.

So that was fun. And then we went over to another house in the McCompound, and there I got to meet Red the Vizsla. His owner was very surprised I even knew what a Vizsla was (ha! She doesn't know me. I know more breeds than most).

He was the opposite of Phoebe--PSYCHO. He just ran around and around in circles, riling Phoebe up, snapping at everyone with sharp little teeth. But once I got him to settle down he was a sweetheart, and so soft! I had no idea how soft a Vizsla could be! His fur was like peach fuzz, and his ears were as soft as glasses cleaning cloths.

This is a Vizsla. So now I won't be the only one who knows what they look like.

And THEN, on the way back from the McCompound, we were driving along the busy road when I saw a dog running in the street. Ashley didn't see him and she would have run him over had I not old her to slow down. He was just running around without a care in the world, ignoring our calls whenever we pulled over and tried to get him to safety.

Finally he went running into a neighborhood, so we chased him down and finally caught him on someone's lawn (the owners of the house were staring at us through the window as we tried to get this dog to calm down and come with us--awkward!) Once we got him into the car (which conveniently already had the seats down and a tarp laid down in the back) we called the animal shelter but they were closed for the night. So we had no idea what to do.

We temporarily christened the dog Pickle because we were in a pickle trying to figure out what to do with him. But eventually Ashley just took him back to the house where she's staying. Her landlords have adopted two cats and a dog, so they were happy to house another stray, and he got along famously with the other pets. After Ashley's friends spoke to him in Spanish and he responded to that, we renamed him Carlos. :)

This dog looks a lot like Carlos, but sadly my phone was dead so I never got a picture of the real Carlos.

Now Carlos is at the shelter, and I REALLY HOPE he finds his family because he was the sweetest dog. I'm sure even if they don't, he'll find a good home with someone else. I just wish it could be me!

On top of all the dogs I got to meet in person, I found some amazing videos of dogs this week. My latest LDS Living assignment is "LDS YouTube Stars." One of them is Devin Super Tramp, who's become an extremely well-known videographer to the point that brands now pay him to make videos as long as he features their brand. Anyways, he has a few amazing videos that feature dogs, so that made me wish more than ever that I could have a dog of my own.


So to all of you who do have your own dogs, be grateful. I envy you. There's nothing quite so amazing as having a dog nearby who loves you no matter who you are, what you do, or what you look like. I honestly believe that dogs are a blessing to humanity. They exemplify a Christlike love that we humans so struggle to find or demonstrate.

For example, the other day I was on the bus when we made a stop and a homeless man got on. He was drunk and dirty and didn't have any money to pay for bus fare, so the driver was trying to gently tell him that he couldn't take him anywhere without pay (especially since the guy couldn't even say where he needed to go). We on the bus were kind of irritated because we were all on our way to work.

But the man had at his heels a beautiful long-haired chihuahua, who stuck by that man so innocently. The dog didn't avert its gaze and step away from the man with discomfort or embarrassment. It saw no difference between that man and the rest of us. When the man finally got off the bus, the dog followed happily like, "Oh, we're leaving? Okay! There's nowhere I'd rather be than with you!"

Dogs are wonderful. And I honestly feel bad for anyone who doesn't like them. They're missing out on some wonderful friendships.

Writing Sins: Mirrors and TMI

(Sorry, I'll have more relevant posts later--as in book reviews, movie reviews, etc--but for now I'm just kind of using this as my journal. It's the only way I feel like writing at all lately)

I've decided I'm gonna start a new category to my blog posts. You'll see what it entails in a minute.

So yesterday I was in Deseret Book, killing time because Ashley works nearby now and we sometimes drive home together.

Since I had a few hours to wait, I picked up a book from one of the shelves. I'd heard it was a pretty good book and I was curious and hey, I had nothing better to do.

I'm not gonna name the book or the author because I don't want to riff on someone I might possibly work with and run into in the elevator. :)

I really wanted to like this book, but I quickly discovered that it fit right into my general opinion of LDS fiction. Self-righteous unbelievable characters, unbelievable plot, etc, etc. I'm sorry but the majority of books written by LDS authors are so cheap and fluffy it just drives me up the wall. If they didn't have LDS ties, I don't think they'd ever get published. Deseret Book is the only one who will take them because they're "good enough, and oh it's an LDS author we need to support!" (Please don't fire me, DB. It's just business, I get it. And we SHOULD support aspiring authors, I just feel like they need WAY more editing so they can really stretch themselves as writers and not get published so easily. Sorry, sorry, just my opinion.)

Anyways, I only got like 40 pages into the book before I found Ashley and we went home, but those 40 pages were almost torturous. It inspired me to start a series of "Writing Sins"--my advice for writers of what NOT to do if they want their book to get on my good side.

Writing Sin #1: Mirrors
It was either the first or second page of the book. The story started with a bit of action, as all books should. Police cars pulled into the main character's cul de sac, and so she went outside to see what was the matter.

But before she did, she stopped in front of the mirror, and we got paragraph-long, detailed description of what this main character looks like.

I actually laughed out loud. OUT. LOUD.

Do NOT, for the love of Shakespeare, be so lazy as to make the main character look in a mirror so that we can learn what she looks like.

A) That is the tackiest trick in the book. Like, that was a rookie mistake I used to make in junior high. This adult published author should not be using that ploy.

B) It's probably not THAT important to know what the MC looks like. His or her character and actions should be enough to define them (see my review of Pathfinder).

C) It almost always slows down the plot for no good reason. This MC is running out the door because the police are at her neighbor's house. Don't yank on the leash and make us slow down for irrelevant details--go out there and see what is going on! Keep the momentum going!

I just can't believe that didn't get edited out. Who never taught this author not to use mirrors? It's like bad parenting!

Writing Sin #2: Too Much Information
Another thing I quickly learned about this book was that the main character would always jump at the chance to offer completely unnecessary details. Obviously the author needed these details said because she found them necessary for the plot, but there was absolutely no reason for the main character to be saying them out loud.

I can't remember exactly what was said, but it went something like this:

The officer pulled out a notebook and pencil. "Do you know the neighbor across the street?"

"Yeah," said MC, "that's Billy Bob. He has three children--two in college, one married living in Vermont--and he has a parakeet named Pip and he vacations in Tallahassee, Florida and he likes raspberries in his smoothies and he watches BBC dramas. Why?"

I mean, really. Who does that? Realistic dialogue would go like this:

The officer pulled out a notebook and a pencil. "Do you know the neighbor across the street?"

MC nodded. "Yeah, a bit. Why?"

"Could you tell me about him?" he asked, ignoring her question.

"Sure." MC tried to think of what would be important to the case. "Nice guy. Has three kids and a parakeet..." In truth, Billy Bob was kind of a loner. Two of his children were off at college and the other was married and living in Vermont. Most of the time it was just Billy Bob and Pip, the parakeet.

The officer wrote in his notebook. "What else?"

"Um...he goes to Florida occasionally..."

"Do you know where in Florida?"

MC had to think hard. "Tallahassee, I think he said?"

You know? You can provide details with internal dialogue, but saying it all out loud is so unnecessary. Nobody talks like that. The MC in this book just kept offering way too many details at the drop of a hat. She's supposed to be a nosy busybody, but there's a limit. Unless you WANT your readers to be annoyed by your MC. Which apparently this author does because I could go into way more details about how annoying this MC was.

But I won't. I think that's enough for now, and I really don't want to tear apart a DB author. I just want to point out to aspiring authors what turns me off as a reader. And based on this book's Goodreads reviews, I'm not the only one who feels this way.

That's all. :) Someone please slap me if I ever use these methods in my own writing.

On a funnier note, this is my new favorite Twitter feed: The Worst Muse. Full of "great" advice for amateur novelists.

Freewrite: Random Moment of Pottery Joy

The other day, on a group text between friends HM, LL, AG, and myself...

HM: There is free Harry Potter birthday cake at Liberty Park starting at 7. And maybe we will do something else Pottery after???

LL: I can get on board with that.

AG: Accio cake!

HM: Leviosa that cake to my mouth!

Me: Engorgio that cake so it never runs out!

HM: I love this friendship. :)

Characters: Interviewees (including the return of Dr. Adams!)

There’s one aspect of my job that I’m still not 100% comfortable with, and that’s phone interviews.

You’d think after preaching the gospel and working as a secretary I would be used to chatting it up with people, but it’s still something I struggle with, especially when I can’t actually see the person and read their social cues.

My very first phone interview happened my first week at LDS Living. I had to (now in retrospect, got to) call an amazing LDS athlete named Fatima Dedrickson. (See my write-up here.) I knew nothing about her, I was just told to call her and get a good story. Yikes! I actually made a question tree, trying to map out every possible way our conversation could go so that I would always have a prepared response and follow-up question. I was that nervous.

Since that interview (which went really well--Fatima is awesome), I haven’t really had to do many more. I’ve transcribed many recordings of interviews that my coworkers have done, so it feels like I’ve done a lot, but I really haven’t.

This last week, though--man I’ve made a lot of calls.  And in doing so I’ve talked to some incredible characters who, far from making me afraid to call people, have now made me want more interview assignments.

Clint Edwards

The first was last week, July 30th, a Wednesday. On Tuesday night we got a call in the office from Edwards’ mother-in-law, giving us a heads up that her son would be on Good Morning America the next day. Edwards was featured because of his viral blog post, “I blamed my wife for our messy house, I was wrong for many reasons.” 

When I came in to work on Tuesday morning, my coworkers delegated me with the task of calling Edwards for a follow-up interview, to see what it was like being on the show, being an online “celebrity”, and so on.

(See my write-up here.)

I was so nervous making the call because again, I didn’t really know much about him. I hadn’t even read his viral blog post yet, just heard about it through Facebook. And then when he picked up the phone he was rushing off to work and I was afraid we were ticking him off by pushing for an interview when he’d just been on Good Morning America.

But when I offered to reschedule, he insisted that no it was fine as long as we made it quick. And we did. Only six minutes long, about. But in those six minutes I learned so much about Edwards and his ideas of marriage.

I won’t tell you everything he said (you can read it in that link above), but it was eye-opening to me to see the “celebrity’s” side of things. His bit on Good Morning America was surprisingly short, and the quotes they pulled from his interview seemed especially doctored to lead up to the discussion that the anchors then had about housewives. Edwards told me his side of things--how he almost wished that his blog hadn’t gone viral, because the fact that it did says a lot about our society’s ideas about marriage. And he was right on when he said that the GMA discussion sounded like “a conversation right out out of the 50s.”

He also got to retell his story with an LDS perspective, which I think he enjoyed because, as he said, “the Mormon Church teaches this.” His viral ideas about marriage are really commonplace ideas in the LDS world, and it’s interesting to see how society has reacted to it.

I don’t know what I expected a viral blogger to be like, but it certainly wasn’t as humble as Edwards proved to be.


Dr. Byron Adams Returns!

Then yesterday I had the privilege of calling my old friend Dr. Adams from the BYU Bio Department (I say “old” but really, it was like three months ago that I saw him last).

First of all, it was incredibly easy to talk with him. It was like calling a close cousin or something--we  talked about how our summers were going, what was new with me, what was new with him--it was great.

Remember how he helped me with that Stowaway article about Antarctica? Well, in one of our brainstorm sessions we remembered, “Hey, isn’t there some way for people to get the sacrament in Antarctica?”

So yesterday I called him up and asked him about it. And it. Was. Awesome.

This guy is so eloquent. The Stowaway “interview” was actually just done through email, so I thought maybe he was just a good writer. Nope. He’s just a brilliant wordsmith in general. I asked him my questions, and he painted this beautiful picture of life in Antarctica, the best part being that we were talking about spiritual things this time around.

“The Church in Antarctica” piece probably won’t be published anytime soon (either online or in print--my bosses want both but it’s not on the schedule yet), so I’ll just give you a sneak peek of what he told me.

1) The Church really has a presence in Antarctica. There’s only one chapel in the researcher/military town McMurdo, but the Mormons have their own time slot for Sunday worship, and everyone on the base gets to see them on the schedule. The fact that there are enough Mormons down there on a regular enough basis to get their own Sunday slot in one of the few roomy, heated buildings on the base is pretty eye-opening.

2) There are missionary opportunities in even the unlikeliest of places. I mean, really. Antarctica? Who’d ever think that you could spread the gospel down there? But from what Dr. Adams told me, he gets questions all the time from fellow researchers, pilots, mechanics--tons of people down there. Everywhere he goes, people know he’s the “Mormon Guy,” and they talk to him about it all the time. It just goes to show that you always need to be prepared for the Lord to send people your way--even if you’re in an antarctic military base.

3) Antarctica is not God-forsaken. Dr. Adams gets to see life “at the edge of existence” as he put it. The ecosystem down there is so simple and so fragile that the scientists down there can observe and map the entire structure. It gives them a deeper appreciation for the grand scale of things--how beautiful this world is. If the life on Antarctica is so perfectly balanced and cared for by a loving God, how much more superb is the life on the rest of the planet?

It was breathtaking just hearing him talk about it. I felt the Spirit over the phone, it was that moving.


Tom Hale

Last but not least, I got to talk to a friend of my dad’s who served a mission in Paraguay, just like me! I’m writing “The Church in Paraguay” (again, set to some distant future date), and as much as I’d just like to tell my own mission stories, I need some outside sources.

Cue Brother Hale! I called him yesterday evening (busy day for phone interviews!) and we had the greatest chat about his experiences in Paraguay, his impressions of the people there, and his knowledge of the Church’s growth in that area.

Two things really stood out to me from our conversation. First, even though he served in Paraguay almost fifty years ago, his memory was sharp as a tack! He remembered names, dates, locations, exact occurrences without even having to pause to think! It made me determined to review my own mission journals regularly enough to recall fine details when I need to (which I currently don’t think I’m capable of). Apparently he remembers things so well because he tells his stories so often. In this day and age of digital storage and cheap photos, it’s easy to forget that traditions and stories used to always be passed down orally. Bro. Hale is a true oral historian, and I hope I can be that good at storytelling and remembering the past when I’m his age.

Second, the Church has grown SO MUCH since he was there. The Church was only ten years old when he served there, and there were only two small branches. Now, where the first tiny chapel was constructed sixty years ago, there’s a full-out temple! In researching for this article I found that there are currently 139 congregations. Some of them are wards in stakes! Not many, but some! And when I look back at how things were fifty years ago, it just makes me excited to see what the Church will be like there fifty years from now. Will there be multiple temples? Ten missions instead of two and a half? I’m so excited. Can I just fast-forward fifty years? Just to take a peek? Por favor??


Anyways, the moral of this blog is that I love stories. I most frequently find great stories in literature and the internet, but I’m starting to appreciate talking to people face-to-face (or...over the phone…). I truly believe that everyone has an incredible story to tell, but not everyone feels comfortable writing (which is why I have a job). If I’m truly interested in others’ stories, I need to be better about getting them straight from the source.

I’m suddenly really excited for my next interview assignment.

Sunday Soliloquy: Too Good NOT to Be True

I'm back, everyone! After helping Ashley with online class stuff for a month, she finally had to give me my laptop back. I shall strive to catch you up on everything I've been up to for the past four weeks.

* * * *

When I was in the MTC preparing to preach the gospel in Paraguay, my companion and I found an empty classroom to study away from the rest of our district. We were still pretty new when it came to talking about the Church, so we wanted to practice our teaching skills without feeling self-conscious around the others in our district.

At one point in the study session, my companion pretended to be an investigator and I was trying to convince her that the Book of Mormon was true, and thus that the Church was true.

Not making it easy for me, she maintained an attitude of skepticism, and at one point retorted, "You can't prove that the Book of Mormon is true. It's just what your parents raised you to believe." Or something along those lines.

Even though we were just roleplaying, it still stung. As amazing as it's been to be raised in the gospel, it's true that it also makes people assume that you've just been brainwashed your whole life. In that moment, facing my companion, I had an inkling of doubt. How DID I know that the Book of Mormon was true scripture? Because that's what I'd always been taught? What proof DID I have?

I scrambled for some kind of witty response, but ended up just sitting there with my mouth open, struggling to find the words that would help me regain my self-confidence and show this "investigator" how much I believed in the gospel.

As I did so, my eyes wandered over to the pictures taped onto the classroom walls. They were all scenes from the Book of Mormon--Ammon defending the flocks of Lamoni. Nephi and his family on the ship. Mormon and Moroni overlooking the destruction of the Nephites.

Then it came to me. "It's too good NOT to be true," I told my companion. The Spirit made my heart pound and the words spill from my tongue, "My life has been shaped by the stories that the Book of Mormon contains, and they've shaped me to be a better person. I've been taught to follow the example of Nephi and serve the Lord. I've been taught to be like Ammon and serve others. I've been taught to learn from Mormon and Moroni to steer clear of pride. Ignore the sermons and the points of doctrine and the commandments for a moment and just look at the stories. How have the examples of Book of Mormon prophets led me astray? They haven't. They've only made me a better person. The Book of Mormon is true. It's too good not to be."

Even though it was just practice, I could feel the Spirit in my heart and in the room, confirming what I'd said.

People can gripe all day about "historical inaccuracies" or "false doctrine" but no one can convince me that the Book of Mormon is a sham. I've learned so much about the nature of man, the nature of God, man's relationship with God, and the purpose of life. Following the examples laid out in the Book of Mormon has only ever led me to happiness.

The Book of Mormon itself testifies, "And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, ... and the teach all men that they should do good" (2 Nephi 33:10).

I'm so grateful that I was raised to believe in it--that I grew up learning about heroes like Nephi, Moroni, and Ammon--that I had the Book of Mormon stories to teach me about miracles and righteousness, and the love of our Savior.

I wouldn't give it up for the world, and no one can convince me that it isn't true. It's just too good.

* * * *

If you still don't believe me, read it for yourself, then ask yourself honestly if what you learned was uplifting or not. Then, if you're still not sure, ask God. He'll tell you. He wants us to have truth and direction in our lives, and this is it.

-->To learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, click here. 
-->To see my profile on Mormon.org, click here.
-->To get your own copy of the Book of Mormon, click here.

Freewrite: Proud to Be a Dork

Today, I just wanted to say that I'm totally proud to be a geek. It's a part of my that I often try to suppress, because people would think I have no life at all if they knew how many shows and moves I'm familiar with, and I'm often annoyed by people who go on and on about their comic book heroes.

But then I come across something like this, and I think, "You know what? Who cares!"

LDS Smile

If these are the kinds of morals that my "geeky" heroes promote, then I'm not ashamed at all to be totally enthralled by them!

Much better than being in the majority, who find THIS quality entertainment:

Just saying.