City of God - Paulo Lins

I have to confess something. I think this is the first time I liked the movie more than the book.

The book is good, no doubt about that. It’s easy to understand why it became a classic and why it inspired one of the best Brazilian movies ever made, but I got lost many times while reading.

There are too many characters, new people show up all the time, the story changes from one person to another, and after some chapters I couldn’t remember who was who anymore. I think this made the reading a little confusing.

Maybe this was the author’s idea, to show the whole Cidade de Deus instead of telling the story of only one person. But for me it felt a little disconnected. I missed a stronger connection between all the characters.

Even with that, I enjoyed the book. It’s a heavy story and shows a very hard reality that many people don’t know.

So yes… I still think the movie is better. I never finished a book thinking that before.

I recommend it if you like this kind of story.