Riding the Wave of Book-to-Screen Adaptations: Are the Books Always Better?

You may have noticed that Romance and Young Adult novels aren’t just topping bestseller lists anymore, they’re dominating streaming platforms and box offices too. From People We Meet on Vacation to Off Campus, this year alone has brought a wave of page-to-screen adaptations across movies and TV, as audiences grow ever more eager to watch their favorite fictional couples and characters finally come to life on screen. But with so much source material getting the screen treatment, does Hollywood ever actually improve on the book, or is “the book was better” simply undefeated?

The Pipeline Explained – Blame BookTok

Book-to-screen adaptations are nothing new. From The Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter and Twilight, bestsellers have been mined for decades. But in recent years, something has shifted. The steady trickle of the occasional adaptation has turned into a full-blown wave, with novels fast-tracked to screen faster than ever before. And we’ve got BookTok and Bookstagram to thank for it — the niche corners of TikTok and Instagram where authors have built devoted fanbases and turned their books into viral must-reads long before a studio ever comes calling.

Streamers like Amazon Prime and Netflix are leaning hard into the pipeline, capitalizing on these built-in audiences and feeding them exactly what they’re craving: more of the stories and characters they’re already obsessed with. That’s the winning formula, it seems, and the viral success of Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty, which first aired in 2022 and wrapped up last year, is the perfect proof of concept.

The Off Campus Case Study

Another case in point is this year’s Prime favorite Off Campus, adapted from Elle Kennedy’s popular book series. The books became a bestselling collection in their own right, with multiple spin-offs and a devoted following for their character-driven college hockey romances. Kennedy built her reputation on emotional depth and slow-burn tension, which meant fans were all the more critical when it came time to see her work translated to screen.

Season 1, released in May, follows the “opposites attract” romance between songwriter Hannah Wells and hockey star Garrett Graham, and the show has since been renewed for Season 2. Despite generally high praise, fans online were quick to voice their critiques, particularly around character chemistry, both good and bad, as well as discourse around the age gap between the actors (Ella Bright, who plays Hannah, was 18 at the time of filming, while Garrett’s actor, Belmont Cameli, was 27). It was a real-time reminder that social media has become home base for disputes over adaptation “faithfulness”, in an era when so much of the media we consume is shaped by online consensus.

And while some key subplots were omitted altogether and certain romances were sped up to fit the show’s timeline, Off Campus still went viral, drawing a growing audience that includes many who’ve never read the books at all. If numbers are all that matter, that could be read as a sign the show succeeded over the books — or it could be cause to question whether the book-versus-adaptation debate is as clear-cut as we assume. Should the two even be judged by the same standard, or should we consider them different pieces of media entirely?

What Adaptations Gain vs. Lose

Every adaptation is a trade. They come with add-ons like soundtracks that tug harder at your emotions, visual chemistry between actors and pacing better suited for viewers with a little less patience. There’s also the pop culture aspect, when memes get brought into the conversation, or fancams and casting choices become the hot topic in group chats. It turns the book into something less solitary.

What tends to get lost along the way, however, isn’t as quantifiable. It’s the internal dialogue – the running commentary that makes a first-person narrator feel like a friend – that rarely survives the switch to screen. Subplots get trimmed, secondary characters lose their depth, and the slow-burn tension built over 400 pages sometimes has to happen in three episodes instead of ten. While some could argue this makes the adaptation lesser, others could say it just makes them a different medium doing a different job. One built for shareability and the virality most creators of today are chasing, rather than the slow intimacy of a novel.

The real question might not be which version is “better,” but what each one is trying to do and which one you prefer as a consumer. A book can take its time, while a show has to earn your attention fast. That might be the real test going forward. Not faithfulness, but purpose. Maybe, then, neither the book nor the show is better. They’re just playing different games.