Breakfast at Tiffany's is the first novel where I watched the film first prior to reading it. I used to be so stiff about reading books first before watching films because I was afraid of the liberties directors take when making novels into film. I thought it would inform my reception of the text too much, and it does. But not in a bad way. If anything, seeing the scenes omitted from the film in the text makes me wonder and critique it instead.

All in all, the novel interests me far more than the film does. The oblique references to not-Fred/Buster/Paul Varjak's possible non-heterosexuality makes it more compelling than the film's direct hetero-ness. The discrepancies in the ending also made the novel infinitely better for me. It may be the 1960s, but dear Hollywood, not every film needs to end with a damn kiss.

As an aside, the film's implication that Paul has a sugar mommy confuses me. Is it possibly to parallel Holly and her stream of sugar daddies? At this point, who knows. But that would be interesting to explore at a later date.