Is Tell Me Lies based on a book? Six main ways the Hulu TV series is different from the Carola Lovering novel
Tell Me Lies season three is currently airing - but how does the toxic TV show differ from the book it’s based on?
The destructive but addictive connection between Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) and Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) is continuing to unfold throughout the third season of Hulu and Disney Plus series Tell Me Lies.
The TV show documents Stephen and Lucy’s on and off relationship, which spans eight years starting at college. But, it is actually based on a book of the same name by Carola Lovering.
The book has been split into three seasons of the TV show, so the programme creators have had some artistic license when it comes to translating written words to the screen, but Lovering has praised TV creator Meaghan Oppenheimer for her adaptation.
“[Oppenheimer] did the most brilliant job seamlessly adapting the book to TV, and I’m so in awe,” Lovering told Elle in an October 2022 interview, as season one aired. “I signed on as a consulting producer, which basically means that I was sort of available throughout the process if anyone had questions about the book…what I remember saying mostly is that I just wanted the emotional themes in the book to stay there.
“I really think that Meaghan and everyone involved has done such an incredible job with that — like, the depiction of a toxic relationship in a real, raw way is totally there, and the dysfunction between Lucy and Stephen is there, and the emotional isolation and shame that Lucy feels is there.”
But, just how much does the Tell Me Lies TV show differ from the book? Here are some of the main differences.
Macy is Lucy’s best friend, not Lydia
In fact, Lydia isn’t in the book at all. Instead, it’s Macy who is Lucy’s childhood best friend. In the show, she is only Lucy’s freshman roommate and she barely gets to know her before she dies in a car crash during Welcome Week. In the book, Macy does still die in a car accident - and Stephen is still responsible.
Some other characters are also not in the book, or the TV show
Lydia is not the only character who has been added to the TV show. Her brother Chris also isn’t in the book at all. The storyline regarding Chris and the sexual assault, therefore, is exclusive to the television adaptation.
Chris isn’t the only sibling created for the cameras. Wrigley’s brother Drew doesn’t exist in the book either. That means, of course, that he’s not involved in Macy’s fatal car crash. Max, Lucy’s love interest in both her college days and again in 2015, has also been created for the TV show. At Bree’s wedding, Lucy’s boyfriend is a man called Dane.
On the other side, there are some characters who are in the pages of the novel but aren’t shown on screen such as another of Lucy’s college friends, Jackie. In the book, she is the fourth roommate instead of Macy and she is brutally honest and immediately suspicious of Stephen. Her traits are seen in both Bree and Pippa in the show.
Stephen is engaged to someone else
In addition, Stephen can’t be engaged to Lydia in the book because she doesn’t exist either. Instead, his fiancée a woman named Jillian.
The story focus is different
In the book, the focus is completely on Stephen and Lucy with alternating point-of-view chapters where they each discuss their relationship over the years.
But, in the TV series viewers learn far more about their friends Bree (Cat Missal), Pippa (Sonia Mena), Wrigley (Spencer House) and Evan (Branden Cook), among others, are impacted.
Jackson White previously told E! News. “The point is that this toxic relationship affects everyone around them. And in the book, you just hyper focus on these two. But, in the show, it’s completely filled out. You see how everyone is going through the ripple effects.”
Grace Van Patten also told the publication: “The show really delves into each character, and each character has such a distinct journey and inner turmoil that they’re going through. You really get to know Lucy and Stephen in the book, but the show really dives into every character and it makes it so much more of an ensemble.”
Stephen is even worse in the book
TV viewers will struggle to imagine this being possible, but in Lovering’s writing, Stephen is more of an overt sociopath and narcissist than he is in the Hulu show, with even darker manipulative behaviour. There’s no sympathy for him in the book, whereas this is created in the TV show by revealing his very difficult home life.
Lucy’s home life is more complicated
The circumstances of Lucy’s home life are explored in both the book and the TV show, but they’re completely different in each. In the TV show, she is mad at her mum CJ for having an affair with a family friend James while her dad was dying. Her dad has then died by the time she gets to Baird.
In the book, however, Lucy’s dad is very much still alive - and her mum betrays him (and her daughter) by sleeping with Macy’s brother Gabe, who Lucy also happens to have once had a crush on.