Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge-Gone With The Wind

About a year ago I started the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. For those of you who have never heard of it; its a challenge to read 339 books that were all referenced in the popular show, The Gilmore Girls. This show was one of my favorites growing up. It was where I learned to have a healthy amount of sarcasm, humor, and even where I got the name I later gave to my daughter Loralai. 

Friends and family all pitched in together and helped to obtain a good chunk of the books I would need in order to start making my way through this long list of books. There are quite a few I had already read on the list, but me always loving a good challenge decided I would even re-read the books I should already be able to cross off the list. (Silly me right?) I have a healthy appetite for reading, but being a mother and a wife, I don't have the same amount of time to devote to reading as I did in my youth. 

Well anyways, the first time I read Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell I was in my mid teens and it quickly became one of my favorite books even though I didn't pick it back up again until a short time ago. As I made my way through the almost 1,000 page book I realized how much had skipped my notice the first time I read it. This book truly is a masterpiece and anyone who views it as only a love story is just kidding themselves. There are so many times where Margaret took the time to paint a picture for her readers about how hard life was in the South during the civil war and reconstruction. There are so many times where I put the book down and looked up at my husband and asked him if certain things that were taking place in the story had actually taken place in real life. Things that we hadn't even learned about in our American History classes all through K-12. 

When I was done reading this beautifully written novel, I decided that I would take the time to watch the almost 4 hour long movie I had heard praised throughout my life. Unfortunately, I was to be extremely disappointed. I expected the movie to leave out many of the smaller details, because let's be honest, a movie never does the book proper justice. But this was just too much to bear. So many things happened too quickly in the movie, the timeline was utterly wrong in some areas, and even two of Scarlet's children were left out of the movie. Though even all of this I could have looked the other way on if they hadn't completely ruined one of my favorite characters in the book. Rhett Butler was not made out to be the scoundrel, the scallywag, the complete ungentlemenlike man that he was in the book. They never showed how much the town/society truly hated him, despised him, but yet had to endure him because of the times that he helped them out. It completely ruined the movie for me and therefore I will never recommend anyone watch it if they truly love the book.

The link below will take you to the complete list of books in the challenge
http://tinyical.com/17SR

Image 1 credit goes to buzzfeed

Image 2 credit goes to Goodreads

Image 3 credit goes to IMDb