Read it or Weep

This spring’s book to film adaptations are hitting the streaming services all season long! These limited run series take your favorite blockbuster books and turn them into six or seven episode arcs, building out the world of beloved characters from Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley to Liane Moriarty’s family of tennis pros.

If you want to compare and contrast or just love a good spoiler, pick up the book to read before you start watching! Click on the book title to request a print copy of the book, or check out Libby or Hoopla for eBook or eAudiobook offerings.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings. The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

Streaming on Peacock.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

“Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the kidnapper knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man he’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Coming to AppleTV+ on May 8.

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety.

Streaming on Hulu.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. 

Streaming on Max.

Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey

In this “tour de force of crime reportage”, acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls–and boy–accused of a savage murder. As she follows the investigation and trials, Godfrey reveals the startling truth about the unlikely killers. 

Streaming on Hulu.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism–but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. 

Coming to Peacock on May 2.

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.

Streaming on Netflix.

-Happy reading!

Melinda