How Many Novels By Sarah Dessen Have Been Adapted Into Movies?

Question

As a fan hoping to see more of her YA fiction become films, I'm unsure which Sarah Dessen book-to-movie adaptations are officially out there.

Angeles Lleno · Answer

I know of two of Sarah Dessen’s books being adapted into feature length films. ‘How to Deal’ was a sort of combination of ‘That Summer’ and ‘Someone Like You’ and more recently ‘Along for the Ride’ was a Netflix movie. The films generally are sweet and bring to life the themes of coming-of-age that Dessen explores in her novels. I see similar themes in the character-driven teen dramas of ‘Eden High Series’ where the friendships and ups and downs of them are just as important as any romance.

David · Answer

Yes, two of Sarah Dessen’s novels have been made into movies. The first was ‘How to Deal’ from 2003. This was a teen movie from the early 2000s, with Mandy Moore, and combined elements of two of Dessen’s novels: ‘That Summer’ and ‘Someone Like You’.

The Netflix movie Along for the Ride came out in 2022. It was relatively faithful to the novel and the movie was a wonderful capture of the book and the beach town the story is set in. I particularly loved how they shot the night time scenes of the main character Faith removing herself from her daily life to wander along the beach at night.

What is particularly striking, however, is the relative paucity of adaptations for other popular YA novels by other, more contemporary authors. Many of these novels would lend themselves perfectly to film, and works such as Dessen’s This Lullaby or Lock and Key are particularly memorable in this regard, evoking the sense of a fabulous cinematic book as it is. As has already been indicated, the movies made from Dessen’s novels work really well.

Jocelyn · Answer

Sarah Dessen has YA novels adapted into 2 films, ‘How to Deal’ (2000) and ‘Along for the Ride’ (2021). I find it interesting to note that the first adaptation was a combination of two of her first novels and thus captured so well the spirit of YA in the 2000s.

Both of the YA novels that filmmaker Sarah Dessen had adapted to film (How to Deal, a 2000 teen comedy-drama that mash-ups two of her early works, and the recent Along for the Ride streaming movie) are about teenagers trying to figure out who they are and get a handle on their complicated relationships.

The novels by Dessen that deal with family could make for a really compelling limited series. The existing films prove that there is an audience for her particular brand of heartfelt YA on screen.

Violet · Answer

Beautiful chaos of growing up. As for film adaptations, two of her novels have already been made into movies: ‘How to Deal’ (2003) was a rather mixed adaptation of two of her young adult novels, ‘That Summer’ and ‘Someone Like You’. More recently, ‘Along for the Ride’ was adapted by Netflix in 2022. In both cases, the resulting films had their strengths and weaknesses when it came to translating the novels to the big screen, and I would always go back to the books themselves. My fingers are crossed that soon ‘The Truth About Forever’ or ‘Just Listen’ will be adapted into films as well – both novels have an awful lot of depth and an interesting cast of characters.

Molli Stringer · Answer

Hmmm...one that immediately jumps to mind is The Truth About Forever by Jennifer eckles Dessen but I'm sure there are others that I'm not remembering right now...which were adapted into films in the early 2000s? Wasn't there a Jennifer Garner film or something?

It’s funny, some authors have complete and total books adapted while others with huge sales have no luck whatsoever. (John Green has, of course, been adapted forever.) I assume it just comes down to timing, trends in the market and whether or not someone can sell the ‘high-concept’ to the necessary people. The Truth About Cedar Creek would surely be a harder sell for Dessen’s greatest strengths of character and mood to get a green light in a boardroom.

Tim Brown · Answer

I kind of like the movie version of The Truth About Forever even though it's kind of terrible. It was on TV when I really needed a comfort watch, and then it made me read the book, which I was really glad for. The movie is not great, but it's kind of sweet and doesn't do any harm. It captures a teensy bit of the feeling of the book, which is probably more than it needs to.

Not every movie needs to be as great as the book it came from. It can be something that introduced people to the book, or is simply something to look back on and remember where you were when you first saw it. Just because it wasn’t perfect, doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been great. Holding a movie to the same standards as the book in which it’s based is bound to be letdown in the end. Just view it for what it is: a typical teen movie.

Diane Kirkwood · Answer

I have no idea. And I’m too scared to ask after reading this thread. You all seem to be quite strongly opinionated on the subject, and clearly know way more about it than I do. I shall just have to continue lurking and reading all the information that you lot are sharing with us all. Thank you for doing all the work that I was far too lazy to do!

How Many Novels By Sarah Dessen Have Been Adapted Into Movies?

7 Answers

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