I watched Heated Rivalry and became obsessed and insane, so I decided to read the book. And I think I’m feeling some kinds of way similar to you? Curious about your take on it. I just feel genuinely confused about how the book is both so similar, like word for word, but also somehow so much worse?? I mean, I know people love it and I don’t mean to be a hater. But I don’t like it really?? And yet I’m in love with this show?? And yet the show is super true to the book??
The thing about Tierney staying true to the books is that he is very good about keeping big things that make no difference and getting rid of little things that make a huge difference. On the surface the show is “true to the book” but he is being very sneaky about what he chooses to change. It is so subtle that I doubt Reid really recognizes it as a conscious effort or any slight against her writing at all.
Like, for example, I already made one post about the changes Tierney chose to make in that first sex scene in room 1410.
The show is very true to the books, but it makes some critical changes that are so tiny people may not have noticed, or if they did, didn’t assume the changes were made specifically because the source material’s version wasn’t good.
1. Ilya manually places Shane’s hand on his dick instead of Shane doing it himself.
2. In the book Ilya says “It was too much…a lot.” In the show Ilya says “Was too good, too much.”
3. In the book Ilya says, “You have not done this with a man.” In the show Ilya says, “Have you ever done this before?” (Or something like that. A statement turns into a question.)
4. In the book Shane describes himself as young and boyish (Reid is always making Shane compare himself to a child in the book. It is so fucking gross.) and Ilya makes a comment about how “smooth” Shane’s chest is. In the show Hudson does not look young or boyish. He does have a hairless chest but Ilya doesn’t comment on it. (This is the type of change I imagine Reid thinks nothing of, but makes a HUGE difference in the tone of that scene.)
5. When Shane is going down on Ilya, he pulls off himself. In the show Ilya pulls Shane off for him.
6. In the show, when Shane says “I know you’re an asshole” he’s smiling. In the books, Reid doesn’t describe Shane’s physical reaction. This is one of my biggest gripes with Reid’s writing as of right now. She often gives dialogue without any body language or expression or description or anything that will give the reader any indication of the tone of that dialogue.
There’s very little internal info we’re given. Somehow a show that (by virtue of it being a show) doesn’t give us any internal insights about the characters beyond their physical reactions has more internal info for us than a fucking book written in their literal internal monologues. If I read “You are an asshole” without being told that Shane smiled as he said it, that completely changed the tone of him saying that. And because of this, many scenes that were put on screen come off extremely differently than they do in the book.
I was already amazed with Hudson and Connor’s acting before, but now I can’t even describe how impressed I am. They were given so little to work with, and the choices they made are exquisite. One change that really stands out to me is when Shane tells Ilya he has a dildo. In the book, literally all we get is Ilya’s immediate “What color?” In the show, Ilya pauses. Lifts his head to eye Shane. Then, slowly, with a pause asks, “What…color?” In the book all we get is “Is it big?” and in the show we get Ilya almost talking over Shane, talking faster, an urgent reply “Is big?” like he desperately needs to know. It changes fucking everything.
Anyway the point is Tierney makes major improvements with tiny changes that could easily be written off as him just trying to condense what’s in the source material or whatever. I really doubt Reid thinks Tierney made those changes because the source material’s version was shitty, because the changes are so tiny, but that is undoubtedly what he was doing. Even in just this one scene, look at the difference these tiny changes make. I didn’t even list all the changes, but they alone turn the scene in the book from something impersonal and awkward and the two characters being really kind of douchey to something tender and sensual and the two characters being flirty while trying to act like they’re not. It makes all the difference, and it’s the same way, as far as I can tell, with all the other scenes he kept.
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