Have you heard of The 100 book series by Kass Morgan? Today Grace is sharing her thoughts about The 100: Book Series vs the CW TV Show.
Book vs TV Show
We love a good book vs movie discussion. Today we are changing the discussion slightly with a book vs TV show.
The 100 CW TV Show
I started watching the TV Show The 100 because I needed something mindless, and I figured that something with seven seasons had to be decent.
After watching the first episode, I realized that there was a book, so I decided that I needed a mindless sci-fi/dystopian read for the summer. I bought the series and waited on the show.
The 100 Book Series
I read the first three books in forty-eight hours.
I liked the concept of the books, and it was mindless fun reading.
I enjoyed the balance of character traits, some action, some lull points, romance, and good ideas. They were not my favorite books or anything as good as The Maze Runner or Hunger Games, but it was a fine teen series. The reason I did not always love parts of the books is partly due to the writing. All the ellipses drove me nuts by the second book.
I did not like the fourth book. It felt rather unplanned. I thought it took characters and made them appear like they learned nothing from the past three books.
The place where they found tension/drama was also really weird to me. I felt like it did not fit.
So yeah, I love the first three books, but I did not like the last one and felt like you could just skip it and end in a nice place with book three.
Book vs CW TV Show
After I finished the third book, I started the show again, and I was disappointed.
To preface this, the show I think does a better job with drama, but they messed up the main points of the story primarily in changing, adding, and taking out characters.
The Characters
I really appreciated Wells in the first two books, but I found something out about him that really messed with me, so I didn’t like him a lot in the end. However, on television, they made him so weak. They nerfed Wells, and I was so sad and felt kind of disgusted about it.
They boosted Clarke and Bellamy, which kind of made me like them less.
Watching the show, I didn’t love any of the characters until near the end of the first season. I have only watched two seasons, but I still have issues with so many of the characters.
In the books, I felt like I could support Clarke and Bellamy in a way that the tv show just hasn’t let me.
Bellamy is randomly good with a bow in the books and not a part of the guard back on the ship. However, Wells was a cadet and thus had military training. However, in the tv show, Wells is the weak unknowing one, and Bellamy is the bad boy and well-versed in military technique type.
I did like some of the characters added in the TV show, but I missed characters from the book.
I do feel like the plot and dialogue are better written in the TV show.
I do not know if I will keep watching the show. I think my main problem is that I just don’t love any of the characters enough to invest myself in five more seasons of them. Bellamy is probably my favorite in both though, so I guess that is consistent in both.
The characters are a little older in the TV show or at least look older, which I feel is more realistic as in the books they sometimes act a bit older than they are.
However, I felt like the characters in the books had better flaws that were plausible. I feel like the TV show has kept these flaws, but not in a way that I can overcome them.
I hate Clarke’s parents in both the book and the TV show.
The TV show does try to make them better than they were in the books. I did not find them relatable in either and kind of feel like I would not be as nice as Clarke is to them.
So from watching and reading The 100, I have decided that I did like the books better because I found them relaxing.
The TV show is good, but it kept irritating me.
More Thoughts
So basically if you have enjoyed one of the 100 series, you probably won’t like the other.
If you enjoyed the books, you can try the show, but you probably will be disappointed like me. You will probably end up looking at it like fanfiction.
At the same time, if you have loved characters and plot from the series, you will find most areas of the book a little dry or so different that it feels like a similar plot and characters but with different outcomes and circumstances.