25 modern book-to-screen adaptations that didn’t let us down

Gossip Girl

Of course, when it comes to being entertained by the wants and woes of the wealthy, there’s no better young adult story to read or watch than Gossip Girl. Originally a book series written by Cecily von Ziegesar, the story follows a bunch of upper-class high school students living lives of luxury in Manhattan. Unfortunately, an online persona called “Gossip Girl” is watching their every move, resulting in plenty of publicized drama.

While The CW’s adaptation of Ziegesar’s books did deviate from the original source material somewhat, it managed to capture the most interesting part of the original story: its characters. There’s truly no one who could play Blair Waldorf better than Leighton Meester, and Blake Lively tackled the role of Serena van der Woodsen with style. Even characters like Chuck, who was nearly impossible to empathize with in the books, feel more human on screen — the result of the series’ acting talent no doubt.

The television series also managed to capture the mystery surrounding the question of who Gossip Girl is, while also delving into why someone would bother to follow Manhattan’s elite students in the first place. It also landed quite a shocking ending, one that it had been building to for multiple seasons.

Apparently, the hype surrounding Gossip Girl isn’t dead yet either. It was recently announced that the show will be seeing a sequel series on WarnerMedia’s new streaming platform, HBO Max. Without books to base the plot off of, it’s questionable as to whether or not the new series will be as good as the older one. But we can hope, right?