Book 191: The Shape of Water by Guillermo Del Toro and Daniel Kraus (Audio book)

The movie was beautiful, poignant, and well made, but the book had more of an impact on me. I was happy to have it as company on a really long road trip. And it was really good.

This book is unique, because its author was also the director of the movie. Guillermo Del Toro - who made the most disturbing movie I've ever seen (Pan's Labrynth) - has created a book that is engaging on so many levels.

In the book, some of the characters are more well cultivated in the book than they were in the movie. Some characters are more interconnected than I originally thought, and at least two did not exist at all in the movie but appeared prominently and were in fact instrumental to the story in the book.

The story of the Gill God, Eliza, Giles, Zelda, and Strickland and his wife Elaine is an incredible one. It begins in the jungle and ends in Baltimore sometime in the 1960s. On their regular rounds as custodians for a scientific research facility, Eliza and Zelda encounter an amazing creature being held captive in a lab. When Eliza - who is mute - discovers that she can communicate with the creature, they become inseparable. The story that unfolds is one of courage, strength, and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.

I hope you'll pick up this book because it was worth reading, even after seeing the movie and having a preconceived notion of what things looked, felt, and sounded like.