Firefly Lane: Book Talk

[Meredith Quill]

Discuss Here!

[peachmangosteen]

What did Tully do in the books that caused Kate to never want to talk to her again?

[btho1776]

I believe she put her on The Girlfriend Hour & exposed her cancer diagnosis to Marah on live TV....am I remembering it correctly??

..watching the series now...asking myself, did that happen in the book & I don’t remember??

[peachmangosteen]

  On 2/6/2021 at 4:26 PM, btho1776 said:

I believe she put her on The Girlfriend Hour & exposed her cancer diagnosis to Marah on live TV....am I remembering it correctly??

Expand  

So, Kate gets cancer and Tully has her as a guest on her show and then ambushes her by revealing her diagnosis without telling her first?

[Mirabelle]

Tully puts Kate on the Girlfriend Hour and its about bad parenting or something like that. Kate is furious and refuses to speak to her until Tully apologizes and Tully won't so they go a while without speaking until Kate gets her cancer diagnosis when she finally breaks and calls Tully. 

[peachmangosteen]

Thank you. That sounds stupid lol. And since I am not at all interested in watching Kate go through cancer, I now don't care at all if this gets renewed.

Give me a spin-off of teen Kate and Tully instead!

[RachelKM]

This was okay.  I have liked several Kristin Hannah books, but couldn't get into this one.  I was annoyed with triangle. I thought I was picking up a story about lifelong friends and there was this nonsense.  I'm glad that the show seems to make it clear that despite his initial interest in Tully, Johnny was genuinely in love with Kate. Maybe the book did too.  But I lost interest before I got there if it did. 

[peachmangosteen]

Does the book cover the '90s? I found it so odd that the show just completely skipped that decade.

[Miss Bones]

Did the whole Tully miscarriage thing happen in the book?  I do not remember.

[CountryGirl]

It did not. Tully never gets pregnant and the character of Max does not exist. 

[CountryGirl]

Other key differences:

Book Kate and Johnny are not divorced, not even on the cusp of it or separated. While the specter of Tully is there from time to time, they’re a pretty rock solid couple.

In addition to Marah, Kate and Johnny have twin boys.

Travis doesn’t exist. 

Book Mutt and Show Mutt are very different characters.

Kate’s mom doesn’t cheat on Kate’s dad.

[peachmangosteen]

@CountryGirl Does the book cover the '90s or does it weirdly leave it out like the show did? I mean, I guess they could cover it in season 2 but it's still so odd to me that there's nothing from that decade in the 1st season.

[CountryGirl]

  On 2/20/2021 at 10:29 PM, peachmangosteen said:

@CountryGirl Does the book cover the '90s or does it weirdly leave it out like the show did? I mean, I guess they could cover it in season 2 but it's still so odd to me that there's nothing from that decade in the 1st season.

Expand  

It does cover the 90s (including Tully getting the ubiquitous Rachel haircut) so yes, it is weird that the show left out that entire decade. Perhaps we’ll see the 90s in S2, if there is a S2. 

[methodwriter85]

  On 2/20/2021 at 8:33 PM, CountryGirl said:

In addition to Marah, Kate and Johnny have twin boys.

Expand  

See, they shouldn't have taken them out. Kate's storyline as a stay-at-home would make more sense then if she had more then just one kid. My guess is that they took the kids out because it'd make Johnny look bad if he was leaving for Iraq while he still had little kids. Damn though, it sounds like they took a lot of liberties with the book.

[Whimsy]

I’m reading the book now. Honestly, except for a few things (primarily character names, Tully’s career choice and the name of their street) the book is VERY different from the show and not in a good way. There are many things left out of the show from the book that I don’t know why. Having three children vs 1 child doesn’t really make a difference, for example. Also, the book doesn’t convince me at all of this lifelong, strong friendship. Tully seems like a very selfish person and Kate seems very jealous. I’m not really enjoying the book at all. Not that the show was even great either, but at least the teen girls had chemistry. 

[chocolatine]

  On 2/21/2021 at 3:55 PM, methodwriter85 said:

My guess is that they took the kids out because it'd make Johnny look bad if he was leaving for Iraq while he still had little kids. Damn though, it sounds like they took a lot of liberties with the book.

Expand  

IMO Johnny looked bad either way. He came across as having a midlife crisis and deciding that his life isn't exciting enough unless he puts himself into a war zone to do "serious" journalism. Whether he has one kid or three, that's still a shitty thing to do to them. 

[BC4ME]

Among the things I don't understand about the book vs the show is why they have Kate's mother having an affair on the show, and sometimes seeming like a less than good mother. It seems like the point of the story was one girl had terrible parenting and the other had good parents. Why alter that dynamic by having Kate also have a bad mother?

[Jillybean]

I just finished the book. I watched the series first. The series really doesn't follow the book plot at all. So many things were changed that even saying it's "loosely based" on the novel would be a stretch. Wow. I don't get it. The book told a much more compelling story.

[Jillybean]

  On 2/6/2021 at 4:26 PM, btho1776 said:

I believe she put her on The Girlfriend Hour & exposed her cancer diagnosis to Marah on live TV....am I remembering it correctly??

..watching the series now...asking myself, did that happen in the book & I don’t remember??

Expand  

I just finished the book. Kate and Marah are having real difficulties and Tully offers to have them on a live show to talk about their problems, saying Marah will behave and listen because it's live TV. Instead, Tully ambushed her saying she needed help, and bringing on a shrink, who called her an overprotective parent who was crushing her child. They had a huge blowout on live TV. This led to a months-long rift that only ended after Kate got her cancer diagnosis and was hospitalized.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Jillybean

[toomuchtv]

I read the book before watching the series. It took me a while to get through the series because it didn’t draw me in at all. It was more “inspired” by the book than based on it. The way the series ended was not an ending. I preferred the book (even though it had me bawling by the end).

[Eureka]

  On 2/20/2021 at 8:26 PM, CountryGirl said:

It did not. Tully never gets pregnant and the character of Max does not exist. 

Expand  

I thought Max was kind of supposed to represent the music exec that she had an on-again off-again fling with in the book. Was his name Graham? But without the pregnancy.

  On 2/20/2021 at 8:33 PM, CountryGirl said:

Other key differences:

Book Kate and Johnny are not divorced, not even on the cusp of it or separated. While the specter of Tully is there from time to time, they’re a pretty rock solid couple.

In addition to Marah, Kate and Johnny have twin boys.

Travis doesn’t exist. 

Book Mutt and Show Mutt are very different characters.

Kate’s mom doesn’t cheat on Kate’s dad.

Expand  

I hate all these changes. Guess that’s what happens when I watch a book-to-screen on a book I like a lot.

[Zima]

  On 2/20/2021 at 8:26 PM, CountryGirl said:

It did not. Tully never gets pregnant and the character of Max does not exist. 

Expand  

This would have been so much better! I hate storylines where a woman who has been child-free her entire life and never wanted children gets pregnant, and then suddenly is all about the fetus  I almost stopped watching because of this. 

[BC4ME]

I listened to the audiobook after I watched the series. Not a fan. I thought it would never end. However, I must admit, I'm not a fan of this author.

[Sweet-tea]

  On 2/7/2021 at 6:25 PM, Mirabelle said:

Tully puts Kate on the Girlfriend Hour and its about bad parenting or something like that. Kate is furious and refuses to speak to her until Tully apologizes and Tully won't so they go a while without speaking until Kate gets her cancer diagnosis when she finally breaks and calls Tully. 

Expand  

Yes, it wasn't the cancer. She had a show about overprotective mothers and how they sap the spirit of their daughters. So Kate felt ambushed. 

They changed so much from the book. Kate and Johnny had a really good marriage in the book. There was no brother named Sean who was gay and wrestling with it. Tully didn't get pregnant and doesn't propose to the father, a younger guy. Kate's parents seem to have a good marriage. Kate and Johnny also have twin boys. Kate and Mara have a contentious relationship when Mara is in her teens, and Mara worships Tully, which strains Kate and Tully's friendship.

Just all kinds of differences. 

And the biggest one is Kate gets cancer and dies in the book. 

I enjoyed the book and like Kristin Hannah as an author, although this wasn't my favorite of her books. I'm around the same age so I appreciate the references to the time period--the fashion, music, etc. 

I think the two leads (Heigl and Chalke) were well cast. And the actress playing teenaged Tully is really good. Other than that, the show pales in comparison. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Sweet-tea

[CountryGirl]

I don’t see Johnny and Tully marrying in the flash forward. That would be a major departure from the book and its sequel, Fly Away.

[Miss Bones]

With them flashing forward 10 years, I wonder if part 2 of season 2 will go the "Fly Away" (book 2) route?  Or we could get a limited series, that is called Fly Away, and follows book 2.  That would be nice.

[CarpeFelis]

  On 1/27/2023 at 7:41 PM, Miss Bones said:

With them flashing forward 10 years, I wonder if part 2 of season 2 will go the "Fly Away" (book 2) route?  Or we could get a limited series, that is called Fly Away, and follows book 2.  That would be nice.

Expand  

I’m glad it didn’t. Fly Away was so painful to read! It seemed like nearly everyone was being self-centered and self-destructive. Marah, especially, was out-of-control nasty, and a lot of the reason seemed to be guilt over having treated Kate hatefully, which didn’t happen in the series.

Edited May 3, 2023 by CarpeFelis

[Miss Bones]

  On 5/3/2023 at 12:36 AM, CarpeFelis said:

I’m glad it didn’t. Fly Away was so painful to read! It seemed like nearly everyone was being self-centered and self-destructive. Marah, especially, was out-of-control nasty, and a lot of the reason seemed to be guilt over having treated Kate hatefully, which didn’t happen in the series.

Expand  

Yeah now that you mention it... I actually wasn't in love with book 2.  It was hard to get through, whereas I tore through Firefly Lane.  I just like when movie/TV adaptations stick to the source material.  Though, one thing I did like about Fly Away was more insight into Cloud's backstory.  In the TV show, I don't care so much about Cloud, because the casting was horrible, made worse by the zero-effort that was put into the old-age makeup!