I watched the movie first and then read the book

Rating: 3/10 (16 February 2019)

Watching the movie, I left feeling quite empty. The plot seemed quite shallow, the characters were very one dimensional. I could tell when watching it that there was so much untapped potential in the story. Like the world they lived in - the movie provided so little detail behind why it was the way it was and what it was really like to live there. And the challenges the characters had to go through always seemed way too easy. When the movie finished, I was disappointed because I knew it could have been so much better and couldn't understand why Spielberg had made such a botched job of it.
That confusion has since become much greater having read the book, which by the way is AMAZING! Like many other reviewers have said here, it's practically a completely different story to the movie. Apart from a similar overarching plot line, everything else that happens in it is different. All the challenges are different, the way the characters interact with one another, the pop culture references... so different and just so, so much better than the movie.
So for anyone feeling let down by the movie, I highly recommend checking out the book. It's an easy read and one where the story will pull you in and you'll have a hard time putting down the book until you've finished it.
3/10 for the movie
10/10 for the book