YA Friday: The Book Was Better

YA Books-Turned-Movies

It's always a blessing and a curse to see a great book turned into a movie or tv series. You hope they get it right, but prepare for the worst.

If you’re an avid young adult fiction reader (and extra) like me, there is a strong chance are you’ve already dream cast your favorite YA book and possibly wasted hours paging through carefully curated Tumblr posts and fan trailers to see how other readers envisioned the story. And while most film adaptions don't even compare to the book, there is still the thrill of seeing the same story told in two different mediums. And with more and more YA novels being optioned for film – and actually going into production! – the fun no longer stops at the reader's imagination and the Internet.

Here is a list of the some of the upcoming young adult book to movie adaptations for the second half of 2018. So now you can read the book before the movie and point out all the things they got wrong to your friends.

Coming Soon

The Miseducation of Cameron Post book cover

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

In the early 1990s, when gay teenager Cameron Post rebels against her conservative Montana ranch town and her family decides she needs to change her ways, she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center.


In Theaters August 3



The Darkest Minds movie tie-in book cover

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

Sixteen-year-old Ruby breaks out of a government-run "rehabilitation camp" for teens who acquired dangerous powers after surviving a virus that wiped out most American children.

In Theaters August 3



To All the Boys I've Loved Before book cover

To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

Lara Jean writes love letters to all the boys she has loved and then hides them in a hatbox until one day those letters are accidentally sent.


On Netflix August 17



The Hate U Give book cover

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.

In Theaters October 19



Mortal Engines book cover

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

The first book in a series, in the distant future, when cities move about and consume smaller towns, a fifteen-year-old apprentice is pushed out of London by the man he most admires and must seek answers in the perilous Out-Country, aided by one girl and the memory of another.

In Theaters December 14



Between Shades of Gray book cover

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers by burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil.

The movie's title has been changed to "Ashes in the Snow."

TBD 2018



Dumplin book cover

Dumplin by Julie Murphy

Questioning her plus-sized body for the first time when an athletic boy appears to return her affections, Willowdean enters her city's beauty pageant and uses her sassy styles and talents to compete against thinner contestants.

TBD 2018


Further Reading/Viewing

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda movie tie-in book cover Every Day movie tie-in book cover The Kissing Booth movie tie-in book cover Midnight Sun movie tie-in book cover Fahrenheit 451 movie tie-in book cover 13 Reasons Why movie tie-in book cover