WARNING! Spoilers Ahead!
It Ends with Us
One story people had conflict with was “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover.
The book was released in August of 2016, and the movie was released in August of 2024, so producers had plenty of time to prepare this movie.
Many young adults read “It Ends with Us,” and some of them even considered it their “comfort book” because it addressed topics that other books normally don’t.
But the movie adaptaion missed a lot of major things that people really cared about in the book.
First, Colleen Hoover did not get the right ages for the characters. She did not realize how long people have to go to school in order to be a neurosurgeon.
In the book, all of the characters are in their early to mid twenties, but Ryle—Lily’s abuser and lover throughout the book—is at least 30 in the movie.
The misrepresentation of the characters stuck with fans because the imagery people get in the book does not align with the movie.
One of the biggest parts of the book that was left out in the movie was Lily’s letters to Ellen DeGeneres, which is very important because it highlights a positive outlook on her relationship with Atlas—Lilys first love interest as a kid—and the abuse from her father as a child.
The letters allow Lily—the main character—to be able to express the things she normally couldn’t.
This also leads to another scene in the book that was left out of the movie where Ryle finds those letters and gets mad at Lily for keeping them due to his insecurities and jealousy Towards Lily and Atlas’s past relationship.
The story itself is about getting into an abusive relationship, and they both show that, but the way that Lily handles and talks about the abuse is completely different which changes the plot a lot.
In the book, she is aware of what is going on and understands that Ryle is abusing her, but in the movie, she is oblivious and does not realize until the end that she was getting abused.
This switches the plot a little bit, and a lot of the fights that they had were just seen as “accidents” until the end where she finally realizes that every time he hurt her, it was purposeful.
Overall, the audience said that the movie felt rushed and it did not get to them as much as the book did.
The ending of the movie shares a special part that Lily shares with her newborn which created the title of the book. That part was very rushed and was not as compelling as it was in the book.
The Summer I Turned Pretty
“The Summer I Turned Pretty” by Jenny Han is both a very popular book and show.
Throughout the show, the main character Belly has a deep chemistry with Jeremiah—her childhood best friend. But the books talks more about her chemistry with his older brother Conrad.
This made many of the readers mad because they wanted her to be with Conrad rather than Jeremiah, and the fact that it was changed in the show made many people mad. Fans on social media platforms will comment “Team Jeremiah” or “Team Conrad” under fan edits.
Belly did have some chemistry with Jeremiah in the book, but it was not nearly as strong as in the show. This upset audiences because they wanted her to be with Conrad, but the show keeps driving the connection to Jeremiah.
Susannah—Conrad and Jeremiah’s mother—struggles with cancer in both the movie and in the show, and once it comes back, the boys try to convince her to get treatment again. In the show, she does decide to follow through, but in the book, she doesn’t.
Even though she passes away in both, they changed the fact that she tried to go through treatment, which tweaks the plot a little bit.
Their family beach house is a huge symbol for the relationship between Belly and the boys and tied the whole story together.
In the show, Susannah leaves the house to her sister Julia, who tries to sell it because she did not like the house as much as Susannah did growing up. In the book, Susannah leaves it with the boy’s dad who tries to sell it because it was too attached to Susannah.
This was a major conflict in the second season of the show and it completely changes the outlook on the house and how the story unfolds.
After
Anna Todd has a well-known, well-loved book series called “After,” which was also been adapted into a movie series.
This series is another toxic relationship series, so it hits home to a lot of young women who have dealt with similar problems.
Protagonist Tessa has a hard relationship with her mother in both the movie and in the book, but her mother’s evil was not as shown in the movie like it was in the book. It messes with the plot because it doesn’t showcase the seriousness of her bad relationship with her mother.
Their relationship shapes Tessa as a person because audiences get to see how she responds to her toxic relationship with her boyfriend Hardin throughout the story. They get to see a little bit of their rocky relationship, but it wasn’t showcased in the movie like it was the book.
The movie also does not show how toxic Hardin really was towards Tessa.
The movie romanticized him and made him more sweet which messes up the toxic and mentally abusive relationship that they had in the book.
Because of this, it was hard for the people who have never read the books to be able to determine that the original story is about a domestic violence relationship.
The movie doesn’t give the full effect, and it obscures the message that the book was trying to portray.
Hardin’s overall appearance was also too “soft” for the story; he was supposed to have many tattoos and a more mysterious look about him.
Many book readers who watch the movie often tend to get upset that the character’s appearance in the movie does not match the way that they are described in the book.
Appearance is very important for a lot of people because the characters looks often important to their characterization. Making Hardin not as dark did not help the audience get the full effect of who he really is a person.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Recently, Jenny Han’s book and movie series titled “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” has been gaining popularity.
Unlike “It Ends with Us,” there were not many major changes, but still enough for people to notice.
Main character Lara Jean wrote letters to her old crushes that she never intended to send, but her sister Kitty mails the letters anyway.
The book version of Kitty mails out the letters due to pettiness, but the movie version does it out of love.
Kitty’s sarcasm and her big personality are not as present in the movie, which is a big contrast to her character in the book. She did still have a lot of personality, but it was not brought out enough on screen to really portray the character she was in the book.
Audiences know two relationships are central the story: the fake relationship between Peter and Lara Jean and Peter’s crazy relationship with his ex-girlfriend Gen.
Between the book and the movie, Peter’s reason for having a fake relationship are very different.
The movie version shows that Peter wanted to start the fake relationship to make Gen jealous and eventually get back with her, but in the book, he wants to start the relationship because he wanted to prove that he was over her.
These changes made Peter a less sympathetic character in the movie.
