WARNING THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS – READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
I recently finished the reading the Famous in Love series (Famous in Love; Truly, Madly, Famously; and Locked – the book that is being made into a movie in the books, if that’s not confusing enough for you). I want to say that I enjoyed that books, but they were honestly quite frustrating. The TV show however, I found that I enjoyed the TV show much more than I liked the book, much to my surprise. It honestly pains me to say this! Lets do a quick run down so you know the concept of the story line.
TV show version – College student, Paige Townsen auditions for the lead role in a book made movie – Locked. The story follows Paige and her transition as a normal college student to being a famous actress. Her co-star, Rainer Devon takes a liking to her and ends up falling for her. Rainer helps her into stardom and how to navigate through her schooling, and her new career. Paige also has struggles with her best friends in the TV show because of her newfound stardom, with Cassandra Perkins ‘taking a break’ from their friendship, and her awkwardness with Jake Salt who in the last episode expresses his love for her. However, in the episodes previous Jake was banging the person Paige hated the most being Alexis. But you know if you really love someone you bang their worst enemy, right? Jake wasn’t a great character honestly, I wanted to love him a whole lot more than I did. He messed with Paige’s head way too much even when she tried to use her stardom to help him out (attaching her name to the script that he wrote). To sum it up the series is about Paige figuring out who she’s into more, whilst minor characters having cheating scandals (Jordan and Tangey, Rainer and Tangey, Jordan and Nina!) and weird relationships with their own son’s best friend (I’m talking about you Nina Devon) Alcohol issues (Poor Rainer) and finally lying to your son about who their father is (oh Nina). Unfortunately we won’t find out until next season who Paige will choose and I find myself changing for Team Jake to Team Rainer every time I think about it.
The book version/s – The book is slightly different. The love triangle is slightly different. Rainer is still in the midst of it but it’s with Jordan and not Jake. In the book 16-Year-old Paige spends her time in Hawaii where the movie is being filmed. She spends her time with pretty much only Rainer and the producers. Rainer also happened to be quite older than her being in his 20’s (but don’t forget in books age gaps like this are fine). Jake and Cassandra are an item – which leaves Paige feeling alone and Paige’s own sister exploits her $10,000 for an exposé on her now famous sister, Paige then has to go to her sisters wedding like nothing has happened – this really annoyed me. At the end of the first book Paige chooses Rainer, not because she loves him more, but simply because ‘he needs her more’. Seriously Paige. Well that quickly changes. During the second book Paige and Rainer fight and Paige gets drunk and calls Jordan to pick her up. Really Paige, not cool. There’s a big scandal and Paige and Rainer (thankfully) break up. Eventually we find out that Jordan is the true winner of Paige’s heart, truthfully she should have walked away from them both. Again in these book there are cheating scandals (with Paige and Jordan) and a near death experience but no craziness like the TV show. I guess there is a different demographic.
After watching the TV show I really thought the book would be better. Good concept, pretty poor storyline. Unfortunately in this case the book was not better, which I don’t think I’ve ever said. I found it quite dreary and quite boring to read at times (it took me about 4 months to read the 3 books). One thing that I struggled with was the constant battle between Rainer and Jordan. It was exhausting. Even after Paige chooses Rainer she continued to use Jordan. The poor guy was so in love with her and she just wouldn’t leave him alone. All in all the books were fairly mediocre. If you like love stories and love triangles – go for it, but I wouldn’t recommend the books. I would, however, recommend the TV show – it was great! I. Marlene King has outdone herself yet again. I applaud her.
Now lets hear it for Locked. Locked wasn’t better at all. But that’s not all the author’s fault. At times it didn’t match up to the TV show, it was like the directors hadn’t even read the book. Scenes that had been filmed in the TV show weren’t in the book at all or weren’t even possible of happening. In the book the ending has August leave the island her and Noah have landed on which is really confusing. The three books that are explained in the TV show and books explain that there is a love triangle for 3 books. But if August leaves the island how does this happen? Does she come back? And how did august have kids with Noah (TV show) if she leaves after about 2 weeks on the island? I expected a lot more from Locked considering it was world phenomenon in the book. Perhaps if it was explained better in one of the Famous in Love books I wouldn’t be so critical. And Noah’s ‘connection’ to the island just seems a little ridiculous and didn’t really answer any questions at all.
It’s safe to say I wasn’t the biggest fan of the books, especially Locked which I honestly really hated. But hey, we can’t love them all.
I hope you enjoyed reading! Let me know in the comments what you thought of the book/TV series.
– K x
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