8 Differences Between the Looking For Alaska TV Series and the Original Novel

In the novel, Pudge learns about how Paul and Marya get expelled, but he never actually meets them. In the Hulu adaptation, he encounters the couple, albeit very briefly, after they get caught (almost) having sex, lighting up, and drinking.

The series goes deep inside Sara and the Colonel's relationship, especially in episode two where a terrifyingly hilarious prank unfolds. Believing that it was one of the Colonel's friends who snitched on Paul and Marya, the Weekday Warriors tear up the suit that the Colonel bought with money writing term papers. After helping him thrift a new suit, Alaska uses laxatives to poison the Weekday Warriors before Sara's debutante event without the Colonel's knowledge.

Dr. Hyde gets a wise word in here and there in the book, but he isn't as fleshed out. In the series, he actually invites Pudge and Alaska to his home, where he talks about his past, during which he taught politics at Berkeley and was in love with a man who died of AIDS. (The Colonel briefly mentions that he had a late wife in the book.) Dr. Hyde is also more involved in the teens' lives in the series, even befriending the Colonel's mother and coming over for Christmas. We're not upset the Ron Cephas Jones (William from This Is Us) has more to say here, though!

In book, the gang hacks into the school system to send emails to Weekday Warriors' parents about them failing their classes, using fireworks as a diversion. This contrasts with what happens in the series, where they hack into the rich kids' college apps and write essays about . . . sh*tting. The show definitely ramps up the stakes, though. In it, parents threaten to sue the school, causing the Eagle to almost expel the Colonel. Amidst first loves and first real friends, the Colonel experiences his first time getting in trouble.

In the Hulu adaptation, the Colonel attacks Alaska's father at her funeral, saying that it's his fault that she died. Her father only talks to the boys about why her casket is closed in the novel, whereas he gets a few more bittersweet lines in the miniseries.

Toward the end, the series introduces a few new couples, including Mr. Starnes and the French teacher, Sara and Longwell, and Takumi and Lara. While we're still on the subject of relationships, the book also does a few things differently. Lara and Pudge never had the fight about the Colonel getting expelled, and Alaska and her boyfriend Jake never broke up (at least that Pudge knew of).

Alaska's memorial prank has a few tweaks in the series. The gang hires a legit stripper to Magic Mike it in front of the school in the YA novel, but they recruit their local liquor store cashier in the Hulu version. The strip song's different as well: Prince's "Gett Off" in the John Green book and Kelis's "Milkshake" in the show. The guys don't strip in book, but we have to admit that it makes for an, ahem, cinematic moment.

While Pudge and the Colonel figure out that Alaska was driving up to her mother in the series, it's Takumi who drops the hint about her mother's death in the book. At the very end of the novel, Takumi writes to Pudge and the Colonel, telling them that he too had a secret — he knew that Alaska had been looking for her mother that night when she was crying by his room. He admits that he played a part in letting her go as well, even though he knew she was drunk.