The one morning I decide to wake up and immediately check my Instagram feed is when I receive the news that one of my favorite book series, “Boys of Tommen,” by Chloe Walsh, is becoming a TV show on Prime Video possibly sometime in 2027, and honestly, I think it’s safe to say that I’m worried.

First of all, the series takes place in County Cork, Ireland, in 2005, something I’m not sure will be kept accurate in the adaptation. This setting is crucial to the plot as it somewhat justifies how normalized blatant abuse and sexism were back then, as well as just how the characters looked.

Speaking of looks, there’s also been controversy surrounding how casting will work. I will say that the characters in the books are not very ethnically diverse at all, and there have also been people questioning who will be chosen to play their beloved characters on screen. Some argue that the casting should be as accurate to the book as possible; however, others say that the casting should attempt to be more diverse and incorporate more representation. 

Some are also adamantly stating that they think the actors should all be Irish with a few exceptions for English actors too, and they’re also questioning whether or not there will be fresh faces in film or if there are just going to be big name actors.

However, aside from the arguments about ethnic representation, I think that one of the biggest things would be whether or not they keep their characters’ body types close to the descriptions in the books or not. 

As the Lynch children, some of the series’ main characters, grew up abused and neglected in their home, it’s a huge plot point that they are small and skinny to truly drive home the impacts that their domestic life has on them and to further track their progress as they begin healing in the end.

Some of the creators of the show include, but are not limited to, the creators of the “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” series adaptation, which faced a lot of backlash, and creators from “One Day,” “To All the Boys I Loved Before,” and “Twilight.” But these movies and shows are drastically different from the type of book series the “Boys of Tommen” series is.

There’s also talk of the adaptation being an eight episode per season limited series. For the most part, with the exception of book five, every two books center around a specific couple in the friend group.

And given that each book averages about 500-700 pages long, how on Earth is all of that going to be shoved into eight episodes per season? Another question would be whether the creators decide to allocate one season per couple or have all of the storylines overlap throughout the episodes like the timelines do in the books.

If anything, I feel like Josh Schwartz should be called in as he was the creator of both “The O.C.” and “Gossip Girl” and the author of the series admitted to being inspired by former 2000s TV shows like “One Tree Hill.” Like what happened to making TV shows that had over 20 episodes and were over 40 minutes long each to really pack in the content?

The fans of the book series were also wondering if this means Walsh will finish the book series as it feels incomplete with some characters not yet having a second book like the rest, and fans are even wanting books for other characters who are part of their friend group such as Patrick Feely and Katie Wilmot, and even backstories for some of the characters such as John and Edel Kavanagh.

As for the content of the show, I think that there’s a huge chance that this show could easily write off other characters’ trauma simply because it’s not part of the bigger picture of the Lynch family’s abusive household. They might minimize and misinterpret aspects of Johnny hiding his injury and his guilt after Marie’s death, Claire slowly losing her spark, and Lizzie’s and Gibsie’s trauma that spiral into each other on multiple occasions. 

They also might not accurately portray the different points of view when that is the exact message Walsh tries to convey—that there is no such thing as taking sides because there are always multiple perspectives and you never know what someone is going through.

I’m also worried that they will sugarcoat the trauma the characters endure such as the abuse the Lynch kids have to live with — Shannon being a victim of bullying, Aoife’s pregnancy, Joey’s addiction, and more — when the books did such an excellent job of trying to portray their characters and their experiences as accurately as possible.

And as much as I don’t like gatekeeping, I fear that this fandom is already toxic enough on its own, and if this series isn’t as accurately portrayed as it was in the books, then the fandom might get ten times worse.