Should you let the film move you first, or savor the original novel? Two bestselling novels are being adapted for the screen, and their film releases are turning attention back to the books. One is "Verity," a psychological thriller by American author Colleen Hoover; the other is "Kimi no Hoshi" (You, Like a Star), a romance by Japanese author Yu Nagira. The two works, embraced by readers in different genres, offer the pleasure of meeting the same story in two different forms — on screen and on the page.
A Romance Writer's Chilling Twist: Colleen Hoover's "Verity"
Hoover's "Verity" is a psychological thriller that digs into the secrets hidden behind the life of a successful author. Hoover, who built her name writing romance, draws out a tense web of desire and obsession, trust and suspicion, in a work that shows the breadth of her range across genres.
The story begins when Lowen, a little-known writer, is offered the job of ghostwriting the remaining books in a series by Verity, a bestselling author left unable to work after an accident. Staying at Verity's house, Lowen finds the manuscript of the author's autobiography in the study, and as she reads the intimate account of the couple's life within it, she begins to doubt who Verity really is. Her growing feelings for Verity's husband, Jeremy, deepen her confusion.
The appeal of the book lies in never letting the reader feel certain about the truth of the story. The autobiography manuscript is at once a clue that uncovers hidden truths and a device that breeds fresh doubt. The more closely one follows the characters' words and actions, the murkier it becomes what to believe, and the reader confronts human desire and self-deception while tracing what actually happened.
Hoover has widened her readership with intense emotions between characters and immersive storytelling. "Verity" pairs the psychological tension of love and obsession with the grammar of mystery, laying bare the page-turning pull of genre fiction. The film of the same name stars Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett.
From a Childhood Meeting to 15 Years of Love: Yu Nagira's "Kimi no Hoshi"
Yu Nagira's "Kimi no Hoshi" is a romance about two people who recognize each other's wounds and go on to experience love and separation over many years. A bestseller that won Japan's Booksellers Award, it does not linger on the flush of first love but traces how a relationship — and the choices a life demands — change over time.
Kai and Akimi, both 17, meet in an island village in Japan and share the same wound: difficult family circumstances. Drawn together by an understanding of each other's loneliness, they become indispensable to one another. But their paths diverge when Kai leaves for Tokyo to chase his dream of becoming a manga artist while Akimi stays in their hometown to care for her family.
The story follows the love and separation the two go through over 15 years. Even when their feelings for each other are the same, the conditions of their lives, their responsibilities and their individual dreams do not always point in the same direction. The novel attends less to the emotion of love itself than to the passage of time lived by characters who carry that emotion.
The way the two live their separate lives after meeting as children shows that love is not something completed in a single moment. It asks who remains in the heart even as a relationship grows distant and lives take different shapes, and whether love alone is reason enough to make every choice together.
Michihito Fujii, director of "The Journalist" and "The Last 10 Years," has taken on the film adaptation, with Ryusei Yokohama and Suzu Hirose in the lead roles. The film was invited to the "A Window on Asian Cinema" section of the 31st Busan International Film Festival, where it was shown to Korean audiences ahead of its release.