I grew up loving the book and reading it over and over. The movie just seemed all over the place. Major points weren't added or were changed. The movie seemed rushed. Good movie, but the books are better. The acting was pretty decent overall. If they do a second movie, I hope they try to keep events in order. There were also some descriptions in the book that the movie completely ignores. If I were you, I would read the books first to get a general idea since the movie changes somethings that are pretty important to the storyline. I personally think they should have slowed down scenes to drag it out some more. Some scenes seemed quick.