CINEMATIC FRIDAY: Recent book adaptations and what’s next to come: The era of Ice Hockey?

By Ayushi (psychology hons,second year)

Designed and edited by mehak koundal,(

b.comPROG),second year

Recent book adaptations and what’s next to come: The era of Ice Hockey?

Let's be honest, we are all quite sceptical of book adaptations. And somehow it always ends up in messy debates like the book reader community vs the adaptation audience, characters appearance in the book vs the actor’s looks and well most importantly that “one” scene of the book vs how the adaptation showed it.

In 2025-26 we had so many book adaptations that were extremely hyped. For this week’s Cinematic Friday, here's a wrap of how some of them went, to give you a tour down the memory lane:

Heated Rivalry: So yeah, what was supposed to be something niche actually took over the world. Jacob Tierney's take on Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, following hockey stars Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) through eight years of a secret relationship was well praised by both the first time watchers as well as those who were the fans of the book. Whether it was the healthy queer representation in the series, the iconic soundtracks, like “All the things she said” and “I’ll believe in everything” or , the amazing cast, everything was loved by the fans.

Off Campus: With Season 1 adapting The Deal, the first of Elle Kennedy's five Off Campus hockey romances; the series not just took over everyone’s Instagram feed, but also their expectations of real life romance with another bunch of fictional men raising our standards! And now we have everyone waiting for Allie and Dean to get on the floor and once again give us the same rush that Hannah and Garret’s story brought upon us. Though the reviews from those who loved the book were pretty mixed with some complaining about the adaptation not being so truthful to the books, overall most of the audience fell in love with the charm of caste and their acting.

Bridgerton, Season 4: Adaptation of An Offer From a Gentleman, following the story of Benedict and Sophie, the housemaid he falls for; we had another exciting season of Bridgeton. And obviously we were all enchanted to meet them. Book fans had mixed opinions on the fourth season of Bridgerton, praising its closer adaptation to Julia Quinn’s novel while critiquing changes to the pacing and side plots. And next up we will be having Sapphic representation in Bridgeton, with Lady Francesca Stirling and Michaela Stirling, leading the central romance! This news in itself has brought upon both hype and polarized opinion about the gender swap of Michael’s character.

The Summer I Turned Pretty, Season 3: Whew! This one brings up so many memories, both stressful and beautiful. With all the Team Conrad and Team Jeremiah debate we had the final season of Jenny Han's We'll Always Have Summer adaptation. While a lot of readers loved the nostalgic beach atmosphere alongside the good looking cast, there was heavy criticism about the main love triangle being frustrating. All in all, loving “The Summer I turned pretty” was definitely “RED”.

Coming up we have even more exciting book adaptations like The Love Hypothesis; the BookTok sensation, Ice Breaker continuing the era of Ice Hockey setting, Verity and also Man on Fire. So yeah prepare yourself for all the crazy edits that are about to take over your feed and scenes that are going to steal your heart.