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The best TV and movie adaptations of forever love books
With her new book, You Love Me, hitting the shops this month along with a new series of the Netflix show You, Caroline Kepnes gives us the lowdown on her all time favourite adaptations of forever love books.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
I mean, come on. The atmosphere. The sun. The sociopathy. Patricia Highsmith’s’ novel made me and so many other writers want to tell sinister stories. The movie is captivating. The wardrobe, the atmosphere. You are fully transported into that time, that world, that headspace. It doesn’t get any better. Unless of course someone adapts my personal favorite Highsmith book, This Sweet Sickness, so I’m putting it out there. Anyone? Anyone?
Beloved
Beloved is Toni Morrison’s spellbinding, classic American horror story, a book with special powers and unforgettable characters. It’s a ghost story and a life story and I could go on forever about Morrison’s prose, her language. Oprah Winfrey has said that she was depressed after the movie tanked at the box office, and that always struck me as absurd. Failure to market and appeal to the masses is not indicative of failure to execute. Beloved is proof.
Terms of Endearment
I’ve been on a Larry McMurtry kick, reading old interviews, rereading The Last Picture Show. Alas, Terms is my go-to for cathartic escape. And it never ceases to amaze me. Bare-bellied astronaut Garrett Breedlove, a character who wasn’t in the book, is delicious. I love watching Shirley MacLaine play with Jack Nicholson. The book doesn’t need Breedlove. It’s a perfect example of how the mediums are so different.
Olive Kitteridge
Olive Kitteridge is my happy sad funny human place. Nobody writes like Elizabeth Strout. You’re not so much reading as you are sliding into someone else’s life. The miniseries is similar, moving you into this small town in Maine, feeling your way through the years with these characters. Is it ultimately good to be a Ronald Rule Follower? Yes and no, and one thing is for sure. It’s great to read about someone reckoning with her decisions, great to watch, too.
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold’s book changed my life. I had never read anything like it. I remember underlining my favorite parts and realizing that the book is my favorite part, a whole. And then the movie. That cast—Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Rachel Weisz and Mark Wahlberg—they all shine. Ronan was a match for Susie Salmon’s voice in my head while I was reading, and really, what more can you want with a story that is so much about the narrator?
You Love Me
The highly anticipated sequel to You and Hidden Bodies (YOU series Book 3)
*** THE THIRD BOOK IN THE YOU SERIES, NOW A HIT SHOW ON NETFLIX ***
‘Crazy, sexy, cool: Caroline Kepnes gets better – and Joe Goldberg gets worse – with every book’ ERIN KELLY
'Caroline Kepnes writes with such malevolent energy, such dark grace and such ink-black humour. An utterly unique character and an utterly unique writer, in a marriage made somewhere between heaven and hell’ RICHARD OSMAN
'Fiendish, fast-paced, and very funny' PAULA HAWKINS
'Another dark, thrilling, and blackly hilarious adventure from everyone's favourite murderer' CLAIRE MCGOWAN
'I absolutely loved it. It’s completely addictive, razor-sharp writing from Kepnes. Internet creeping at its most darkly humorous. Joe’s back, and this time it’s definitely real love' CATHERINE STEADMAN
‘Caroline Kepnes must be some kind of storytelling sorcerer. How else can Joe Goldberg — stalker, creep, multiple-murderer, blamer of everyone else but himself, a “long overdue book, the one you never thought was coming” — be such an entertaining narrator? Even Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith’s famously amoral character (a clear inspiration for Kepnes), could be enjoyed at a third-person remove, unlike the in-your-face immediacy of Joe’s blinkered perspective . . . brilliant’ New York Times
JOE GOLDBERG IS BACK. AND HE'S GOING TO START A FAMILY – EVEN IF IT KILLS HIM . . .
Joe Goldberg is done with cities, done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now, he's saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cosy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe.
He gets a job at the local library – he does know a thing or two about books – and that's where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won't meddle, he will not obsess. He'll win her the old fashioned way . . . by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they'll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town.
The trouble is . . . Mary Kay already has a life. She's a mother. She's a friend. She's . . . busy.
True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He's ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kay will do the right thing and make room for him.
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