Well. Now I can finally say I've read it!

Geez the movie was almost completely different from the book!! It was kind of hard to imagine they're even related, and don't get me started on the end! What was with that!? It was nothing like the book! How is Ender's brother going to take over he world? How does Valentine have such a big impact on what happens? All of it was just missing.

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  Other things I noted being different:
• Characters are older, nor are they as ruthless. Probably for the best, it was uncomfortable to read about, let alone watch. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought it was odd by how violent Orson's 'children' were.
• Bean is there from the beginning.
• No one is running around naked, thank goodness - don't know about you guys but I did not want to watch a bunch of prepubescent boys running around starkers. Glad I also wasn't the only one who thought it was odd how many naked scene's there were in the book, I swear they spent half the time with no clothes on :/
• Ender is quite a big kid in the movie, he's meant to be tiny and almost 4 years younger than everyone else.
• Ender didn't have to fight his way to the top, nor prove himself. Every commander Ender had in the book he had to physically or verbally fight, this time he only did it once. Otherwise he seem to skim through with no issues. 
• Different insults were used, didn't remark/insult any physical characteristics or make any sexual remarks.
• The boy doesn't give the same blessing in the movie as he did in the book - actually in the movie I don't get why he's friends with any of the people he was originally close with in the book. They barely talked.
• In the book Ender has most of the original ideas, in the movie the others come up with the majority.
• The shrink - Anderson? is played by a women (How to get away with murder)
• Ender didn't start his own little rebellious group before coming commander of the Dragons, nor did they fight any fights, except for the one that is at the end of the book, just before Enders calls it quits.
• People who weren't in Ender's Dragon army in the book, are there in the movie.
• Ender didn't turn into a giant dick when he became in charge, also they used completely different tactics in the final game (if i recall correctly) and the line was clearly visible.
• No weird naked fight scene.
• The adults weren't as scheming in the movie, and they appeared to be more supportive, if idiots.
• Earth scene was completely different, for one they skipped the first scene.
• Speaking of earth, where is team Vi and Peter? Aren't they meant to be taking over the world by now? Earth isn't even really on anyone's radar in the movie.
• Face tattoos!! Ender doesn't attack teacher ruthlessly. And the teacher is much more forth coming with information and his identity.
• The final battle screen is different, I believe in the book is was described as little square boxes, like pixels that stood in for the enemy ships. Enders team also didn't fall apart, and he didn't loose there friendship. The end battle itself was different.
• The whole ending was nothing like the book. Nothing like.

So yeah, these aren't even all the differences I noted while watching, jut the ones I can recall now. It has to me never been this obvious the difference between a book and movie before. I don't know how anyone who watched the movie knew what on earth  was happening or why because they skipped out on so much information and scenes.

End thought: Movie was shit.

Enders Game Boxed Set - Orson Scott Card

Heads up - this review is all over the place, mainly I just wrote down whatever came to mind and didn't bother putting it into a more coherent order....

A rather strange book, but I enjoyed listening to it for the most part. It was a nice distraction while I was cooking, catching the bus, doing chores, etc.

I do want to point out these odd kissing and naked scene's - what was with those? mainly the naked fighting scene, that just seemed particularly bizarre. Freudian slip perhaps? Or perhaps it was just meant to be innocent boys fighting in the nude and it just came across a little weird via the audio version?

One of the best things about this book was it's surprises and slow build. You have an idea something was going to happen but no clue when, where or how - it was fun, though I didn't bother trying to guess like I usually would, just enjoyed the ride.

The characters were a bit....meh. One could say it's because the author didn't put enough effort into creating and building them, only using them as chess pieces as needed, or someone else could say that the reason they came off so bland was because Ender could never truly get close to anyone enough for us to truly get a read on them, and therefor they came off a distant and maybe more 2 dimensional.... me being the cynical bitch that I am favor the first opinion more. Though I did love the fact there was no love interest!

I have mixed feelings about the narration - some of it was good, other times a bit iffy.

The ending was enjoyable and satisfying. And i especially enjoyed the authors little speech at the end. He's pretty funny, maybe a little up himself (hard to tell when your only listening to an audio tape) but I had a good laugh at a lot of what he had to say.
Apparently there's a movie - after listening to the author explain how he....changed it, I must admit to be rather interested in watching it. Here's hoping its good!

Not sure I'll read the other books attached to Ender's Game though they did sound interesting - we'll see.

Enders Game Boxed Set - Orson Scott Card

9% - I listen to this now and then, usually while I'm cooking dinner or going for a walk. It's a tad....strange, but the narrator does a pretty good job with the different voices, especially the adult voices... mixed feelings about the voices for the children. Though the speech pattern is fantastic - something i miss out on when I'm actually reading.

25% - Taking me a while to get through it all, but I'm enjoying it while doing my chores, etc.

This is one of those books that I'd heard so much about in the last few years, that it was kind of impossible not to read it at some point. Also, I watched the movie and although I saw the twist coming for quite some time, I really enjoyed it.

Basically Ender's Game bottles down to Ender, a young boy (at the start he's supposed to be 6 years old - something I'm just not buying), sent of to train at Battle School to learn to fight a war against some kind of creatures.

A lot has been said about this book, the series and the author. Therefore, this is not an in depth review but rather just some of the ideas I had when reading the book. The beginning really intrigued me and I thought I'd finish it within a day, since it was so compelling. However, after one particularly unnecessary sexist comment (stating women have evolution working against them) I kind of lost interest for some time.

This might also have to do something with the fact that Ender (who's only 6 years old; did I mention that?) is such a 'fantastic boy wonder genius' (no that's no sarcasm there, of course not, I wouldn't dare, he's really that good, oh and only 6(!) years old). I've always have a problem with these superduper protagonists who apparently can't do anything wrong and seem to shit rainbows and unicorns. Ender is one of those protagonists.

His siblings are planning to take over the world in a rather dull scheme, but the bright side is that it's the only break from the quite repetitive scenes of Battle School we get. I quite liked the computer game thing, except of course for the fact that special snowflake Ender was the only person smart enough to crack it. The armies and the strategy planning and the battles, they started to feel a bit repetitive as we follow Ender through his years on the school.

This all being said, I really wonder why ever I gave this book 3.5 stars. I always score books immediately after reading and just follow my gut feelings. Perhaps it was the holiday feelings that lingered, or perhaps it's the fact that despite I believe that this book is far from perfect I did have an enjoyable time reading it (I also liked watching the movie) and I would like to at least read the second book, Speaker for the dead.