Kingdom Hearts: The Novel is an adaptation of the video game of the same name written by Tomoco Kanemaki with illustrations by Shiro Amano. It tells the story of Sora, a boy yearning for adventure, who has to team up with Donald Duck and Goofy in order to find and save his friends, Riku and Kairi, and prevent all the worlds from succumbing to darkness.
This novel is a fairly good adaptation of the video game. It takes the plot of the game and condenses it into a better-paced story. Gone are the worlds which contain little relevance to the overall plot of the story. Instead, Kanemaki chooses to stick to the basic story of the game and let the characters shine through. This, alone, is a smart move on Kanemaki’s fault. While exploring countless worlds works well in a video game, it doesn’t work so well in a novel. Had Kanemaki adapted the game exactly as was, the book would’ve felt very repetitive very quickly. Continue reading
The Essential Paradise Lost is a book by John Carey that seeks to condense the legendary epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton into a length more accessible to modern-day audiences by cutting out and summarizing the less relevant passages of the poem in order to focus more on the characters and the central story. Along with this new condensing of the poem comes several analytical essays about the meaning and impact of the poem, all penned by John Carey. The Essential Paradise Lost is a valiant attempt at making Milton’s dense poem more accessible to the general public; however, it doesn’t quite succeed. 
Thoroughly Modern Reviewer 