Ravi Deshpande

I think this show was a great watch - I am considered a huge bookworm in my family, and I have read this series at least ten times. Unfortunately, they are not as keen on reading fiction (why????) so I can never bond with them over the things I read, I.e. my alternate life in which all the characters that I love and delve into reside. This series did a GREAT job of introducing these things that I love to my family and they loved it. However, as an avid fan of this series who has read the first book more than twenty times, I do have some criticism. (Spoiler alert for the following) I’m not averse to the changes they made, but there were a lot of changes that I believe completely altered the characters of the individuals. For example, Kate seemed really shy and timid who was trying to act tough, while she should be fierce, loyal, and extremely energetic, which I didn’t get. S.Q was supposed to be only for comedic purposes, and in fact, without that there’s not a lot of comedy in the book. The series struck me as too bland in that sense. I feel like the adult actors were a bit too overenthusiastic and the kids too shy but here I’m just nitpicking. These are the more major ones - there are a lot of other ones that did not bode well with me because I just thought the original story was so much better, but maybe that’s because I’ve read it so many times. I give it a 4/5 because it’s still a solid series for a newcomer - I still feel like it could have been a TON better though. (Great job on the test scenes)