Our Favorite New and Highly Anticipated Book to TV Adaptations

[source: Starz]

It’s a good time to be a well-read TV fan. Between The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, Big Little Lies on HBO, and Thirteen Reasons Why on Netflix, readers have a lot to look forward to as the books they know and love experience massively expanded universes in the form of new worlds and new characters. And bookworms who are still trying to scratch that television itch have a ton to look forward to in the coming months. To celebrate this literary television surge, here are our the recent book to TV adaptations we’re excited about.

[source: Starz]

Sweetbitter on Starz (May 6)

If you’ve been paying attention to our blog, you know we’ve been Sweetbitter fans for years. So you better bet we signed up for a Starz subscription for the sole purpose of watching this adaptation of Stephanie Danler’s incredible novel. Ella Purnell (most notably of the film adaptation of our own Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children) stars as Tess, a young woman who’s new to everything from New York to the high stakes restaurant world that accompanies the city. We’re excited about how she plays off Caitlin FitzGerald (of Masters of Sex) in all those fantastic Tess/Simone scenes Stephanie Danler crafted in the novel. And with Danler on the writing staff, we have high hopes for this adaptation.

[source: Little, Brown and Cmpany]

Today Will be Different on HBO

The release date of this HBO adaptation of Maria Semple’s Today Will be Different is still unknown, but here’s what we do know: Julia Roberts will star as Eleanor Flood, a 49-year-old Seattle artist determined to make this day different than any other she’s ever experienced. “Today I will buy local,” she promises on the first page of Semple’s novel. “Today I will be my best self, the person I’m capable of being. Today will be different.” We also know that this show will be formatted as a limited series with Maria Semple at the helm in the writers’ room, much like HBO’s approach to season one of Big Little Lies. Like the novel, the series will take place over the course of 24 life altering hours. And because Semple is running the show, we’re sure to see endless location shots throughout Seattle, the author’s home for the last decade. Get ready for your close up, Olympic Sculpture Park.

[source: Hulu]

Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu

The Little Fires Everywhere news is still so new, so it’s no surprise that this series also doesn’t have a release date yet. But like Today Will be Different, we have a lot of hope and excitement about this series. Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Butler are not only co-producing the series based on Celeste Ng’s incredible book by the same name, they’re also co-starring in the series – a dynamic we are eager to see play out on screen. There’s no telling if this eight-episode season will extend beyond the scope of the Shaker Heights world Ng created, but we’re excited to find out. We really love this novel, y’all.

[source: HBO]

Sharp Objects on HBO

Amy Adams stars in the HBO adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and after the deftly paced psychological thriller that is Gone Girl, we’re anxiously anticipating this show’s premiere. Sharp Objects, which has snagged one of HBO’s coveted summer slots with a July premiere, is currently planned as an eight-episode limited series – but the network said the same about Big Little Lies last year. Gillian Flynn will serve as one of the series’ writers alongside Marti Noxon, who has repeatedly blown us away with her writing on UnREAL. This is going to be one suspenseful summer.

[source: AMC]

Dietland on AMC

Marti Noxon also has a big hand in Dietland, an AMC series based on Sarai Walker’s bestselling novel. Noxon serves as executive producer, showrunner, director, and writer on the series and we have to say we’re excited about this Shondaland level of creative control. This dark comedy centers on Plum, a ghostwriter for a high fashion magazine, and a world where sexual abusers and assaulters encounter untimely deaths. It’s a series ripe for the #MeToo movement and the increasingly transparent world we live in.