Message In A Bottle

     I've talked about Nicholas Sparks' books here before. I do read all he writes, some definitely better than others. I had only read Message in a Bottle once and thought it time to pick it up again. I'm not sure how long after I read the book that the movie of it came out. I, of course had to see it also. It'd been a lot of years since either version and I looked forward to reading the book again. About a month ago I finally came across it in the library and brought it home.
     I was excited to begin and figured it'd be a quick, easy read. Boy, was I wrong. I was waiting for certain parts I realized weren't going to come. They had been in the movie version and not the book. Just that simple fact disturbed me so much it took awhile for me to get through even more of the book. I guess too many years had gone by that I'd mixed the two versions of the story in my head. I wasn't sure which was which anymore and this highly annoyed me. Once I read through a certain section and knew for sure some of what I remembered was not in the book and had to be in the movie I did my best to plug on with the book.
     That was until I caught the movie on tv one night. I thought, "Great, I'll just record it to watch when I've finished the book and it's fresh in my mind." Best laid plans yet again. The film had just begun about 10 minutes before I'd found it so of course I couldn't bring myself to turn off the screen. I watched for quite awhile, still taping it also. When the film caught up to my place in the book I did shut it off. I was still disturbed by the differences in the two and my shoddy memories of both. How could I have confused them so much?
     I tried a few more times to get back into the book. I just couldn't do it. The fact that I had confused the book and movie in my own head was so disturbing to me I no longer wanted to finish. The book sat untouched another week or two. Finally I returned it without getting to the end. Not long after I deleted the movie from my dvr playlist, certainly not wanting to watch the film version either. I do remember the end of the book. At least I think I do. But I am not sure if the movie played out the same way. I want to say no but I'm just not sure. At this point in time I really don't care.
     Eventually I may get to the point of needing to know, or maybe I'll just catch it on tv at the right time. I'm not sure I'll ever go back to the book. Maybe because the story just isn't one of my favorites. Maybe because I know what should happen to the characters and I don't know which version has the right ending. Maybe because I really hate when Hollywood messes with books. Ok fine, they've done some good ones. But I tend to like them better if I haven't read the book. They change my vision of the characters and all, too much to get over sometimes. Maybe I'm just really ticked at myself for confusing them, Aren't I better than that? I love comparing books with their movie counterparts how could I have them mixed in my head? Yeah, I guess that's probably it.