Netflix is celebrating World Book Day with some news of its own. “Geek Girl,” the series adaptation of Holly Smale’s debut novel of the same name, is set to premiere on the streamer May 30.
The Waterstones Children’s Book Prize winner follows the story of Harriet Manners, an awkward 15-year-old English girl who’s plucked from obscurity to be part of a high-profile fashion advertising campaign. She has to balance this wild new adventure with the pressures of her everyday life and her school bully. The limited series stars Emily Carey as its lead.
That’s far from the only book adaptation Netflix is releasing this year. “A Man in Full,” based on the novel by Tom Wolfe, will premiere on May 2. Season 3 of “Bridgerton,” which is based on Julia Quinn’s “Romancing Mr. Bridgerton,” will premiere two parts on May 16 and June 13. Finally, the movie version of “Thelma the Unicorn,” based on the novel by Aaron Blabey, will premiere on May 17.
Additionally, film adaptations of “Uglies” by Scott Westerfeld, “That Christmas” by Richard Curtis and “Pedro Páramo” by Juan Rulfo are set to premiere later this year.
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On the television side of things, 2024 will also see the premieres of TV adaptations of “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” by Holly Jackson, “The Helicopter Heist” by Jonas Bonnier, “The Perfect Couple” by Elin Hilderbrand and the highly-anticipated adaptation of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez. Season 3 of “The Lincoln Lawyer,” based on the novels by Michael Connelly, as well as a series adaptation of Judy Blume’s 1975 novel “Forever” are also expected to be coming soon.
It’s a commonly held belief in the film and book industries that an on-screen adaptation will boost book sales. At least, when it comes to Netflix, that’s been the case. Following the release of “3 Body Problem” on the streamer, “The Three-Body Problem” returned to the The New York Times Best Seller list. Two other books in the series — “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” and “Silent Spring” — also appeared on Amazon’s Most Sold Chart after the sci-fi thriller’s debut.
Other Netflix originals have resulted in similar bumps. The limited series “One Day” returned to No. 1 on The Sunday Times Bestsellers List 15 years after the release of David Nicholls’ novel. The widely-watched “Fool Me Once” resulted in the tie-in cover of the Harlan Coben novel selling 20,000 physical copies after its release in the U.S. Elsewhere, Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See” returned to The New York Times Best Seller list for eight weeks following the release of the Netflix original.
“Leave the World Behind,” “My Life with the Walter Boys” and “Society of the Snow” saw similar bumps. According to Nielsen, the Sam Esmail film led to a 20% increase in sales of Rumaan Alam’s novel. Print book sales for Ali Novak’s YA novel doubled in the U.S. after Netflix audiences were introduced to the Walter boys. And following the release of “Society of the Snow,” Pablo Vierci’s 2009 novel became the No. 1 seller on Amazon Spain’s Most Sold Chart.
