By Rebecca Reed
This troubling Netflix series hit our screens earlier on in the year. It quickly became a binge-worthy TV fest amongst young adults and adults alike.
The story follows high school student Hannah Baker, who sadly commits suicide after a series of demoralising events brought on by select individuals at her school, but before doing so recorded thirteen reasons why on tapes. These tapes are circulated to each of the aforementioned select individuals and we follow Clay Jensen on his journey of listening to each of the tapes and the harrowing situations described by Hannah.
Whilst there were many critics saying that this was glamorising suicide, there has also been a lot of praise from audiences and critics who praised the graphic depiction of the subject matter and the two main characters.
After binge-watching the entire series in a week, I had the book bought for me as a present of which I asked for, it was really to see if it is that much different from the TV show, there are many differences between the characters; as in Marcus Cooley was the character in the book, but the TV show named him as Marcus Cole. The order of the tapes is also different. We are pleased that the TV show stayed true to the original written content by Jay Asher.
Many found the TV show very hard to watch at times, but it is a subject that isn’t spoken of enough and it really needs to be. A second season has been announced and is scheduled to premiere in 2018. So, if you did enjoy the first season, the second season will pick up where the first ended.
Pretty Little Liars – by Sara Shepard
Pretty Little Liars is the hit teen drama/mystery thriller television series that premiere in 2010 and finished this year. It spans seven seasons so perfect for a binge watch on Netflix at the moment.
The series follows five friends, Spencer, Alison, Aria, Hanna and Emily. They fall apart after the leader of the group, Alison, goes missing. A year later the estranged friends are reunited as they begin receiving messages from a mysterious villain named “A” or “A. D” who threaten and tortures them for the mistakes they have made before and after Alison went missing. You wouldn’t be the first to think that perhaps Alison is “A” but after the discovery of Alison’s body, the girls realise someone else is planning on ruining their lives. So, the mystery begins.
The TV series went through a turbulent turn and was met with an uproar of criticism with the season finale of season 7 and the last ever episode to air.
I began buying the series, which features 16 books, so quite the series to work through. I did only buy these out of spite of the season finale because I had heard that the TV show was only loosely based on the books, so I am ready to read and live through the girl’s adventures all over again, but hopefully with an ending that makes sense.
Big Little Lies – by Liane Moriaty
The TV mini-series that aired on television this year was based on the novel written by Liane Moriarty.
The story follows three mothers, Jane, who was raped is a single mother of little boy Ziggy, Madeline a re-married mother with two daughters one from her previous marriage and the other who is the same ages as Ziggy, and Celeste with her twin sons, both also Ziggy’s age, she is also being physically abused by her rich banker husband Perry.
The TV series featured big names which is why we settled down to watch it, Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley and Alexander Skarsgård. The series gained critical acclaim and received 16 Emmy nominations with 8 wins. In July 2017 HBO announced a second season is possible and that Liane Moriarty has been asked to write a story for a second season.
After finishing the TV series and the explosive ending, we promise no spoilers, we just had to get our mitts on the book. We wanted to see if HBO had changed much. Sadly, as many other books have taken first place in our to-read lists, we haven’t got around to this one yet.
The Mist is based on Stephen King’s horror novella of the same name. Set in Bridgton, Maine, the small town is suddenly engulfed by an unnatural mist that conceals otherworldly monsters of various sizes that attack and kill anything that moves, trapping several groups of people in a shopping mall, church and hospital.
The TV series did fall flat with many audiences, who claimed that they were rooting for the monsters instead of the main characters who gave mediocre performances at best. After finishing this series, they did leave it on a cliff-hanger, but we have recently seen that the TV series was cancelled after this first season. So, we just had to find the book to see if the ending is any different, at the moment it seems the book is fairly elusive. It is currently on my waiting list to come back into stock with many retailers.
Have you ever read a book after watching the television show? Which books did you read? Tell us in the comments below.
2 Comments
I’ve felt a bit let down a couple of times reading a book after watching a film/TV series, so I tend to try to read the book first if I’m going to read it at all, to discover how the author intended things to pan out. However, I’ve enjoyed Outlander so much and heard some really good things about the books I am probably going to start reading that series soon.
Ahh yes, we can understand that feeling Helen. Let us know how you get along with the Outlander books.