Karen Schraven

I'm late to the game and just finished reading Book 2. A few minutes into this film (which I initially thought was going to be an episodic series), I put a library hold on Book 1 again because I thought I forgot what happened in the book. Turns out, it was the movie that forgot what happened in the book! Spoilers ahead... I found the setting distracting - I was expecting a campus with multiple apartment buildings and a central building where all the activities took place. I was expecting there to be a hill behind the place with a cemetery at the top of it. Certainly not the Downton Abbey mansion. The most disappointing character adaptations for me were Donna, Chris and Bogdan. Donna was like a credulous deer in headlights instead of the savvy, bored South Londoner she is. Chris was a buffoon that I can never imagine Donna introducing to her mother. The enigmatic Bogdan of the books was all over the map in the movie. But the worst by far were the plot changes. It just didn't make sense and, again, made me wonder if I had forgotten the book. Wasn't there a pregnant nun? When was Elizabeth followed and threatened? Wasn't there a bench on the way up the hill that played a part in the story? Bogdan was arrested for murder? What? I didn't remember the Bobby Tanner gardener subplot at all, so maybe I really did forget that part of the book. Many reviewers have written cynically that "Americans will eat it up." Thank you for holding us in such high regard; bless your hearts. But don't blame us for this crappy film. I, for one, didn't care for it either.