The Clock Keeper

I also recently watched Hugo based on the book: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. I did end up reading the book so I'll talk about them both. First of all the book... I had no idea what the book was about. Like absolutely none but I knew I wanted it because of the title. I originally thought it was about traveling by balloon around the world or something like that based upon the cover. Now you know I never looked very close to what the cover looked like.

I found out it was about a boy named Hugo Cabret he was alone and wanted so badly to fix this machine, the automaton, his father was working on. The reason is pretty heartfelt so I won't ruin it. He lives inside the walls of a train station taking care of the clocks like his uncle told him to. Problem is he hasn't seen his Uncle for months. I think he keeps doing it because he doesn't know what else to do. He steals parts of mechanical toys from a Toy store run by an old man. He is caught one day and this leads him to a world of discovery. With the help of Isabelle, the toy shop's goddaughter, Hugo will finally get some closure and something else he wasn't looking for but really needed.

I really liked the first half of this book and I absolutely loved the illustrations! There is one is particular:

I SO want to draw this. It's like it's tugging at my heart to do so. *sigh* Anyways there was a point where it got predictable and kind of boring because the subject didn't interest me that much. BUT, the movie portrayed it really well. I think for me the movie made more sense than it was a book. The book was still good but the movie was better. Considering the subject matter it does make more sense to have it visual. It also added more with the station inspector. I just felt more towards it which I kind of thought I would when watching the trailer a couple of months after I read it.

Now with the characters of the movie... Hugo was played by Asa Butterfield who I could have sworn was the kid who played Let Me In because they looked so much alike but it's not. I loved this kid's eyes. They were piercing into my soul and made me feel so bad for him and his situation. You know he was Bruno in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? And I now found out there was going to be an Ender's Game movie when I looked him up which he'll be in. I've never wanted to read that book but my brother would be quite interested so there's that.

Isabelle is played by the girl from Let Me In and also funnily enough Kick-Ass. She's going places you can tell. Her name is Chloe Grace Moretz in case you are wondering. Oh yeah I almost forgot there was a big difference in what happened in the movie and the book with the old man from the toy shop which I thought was odd. The book had it right well... it depends on how you see it. Both make sense I guess. eh.... I don't know what I think about that right now. So in conclusion I'd watch the movie if I was you. It was really well done.