Book Vs Adaptation: The Ocean At The End of the Lane

Adaptations… love them or hate them, we seem to be getting a lot of them, with more and more getting announced every week it seems. At the start of 2023, I was reading With This Kiss by Carrie Hope Fletcher and in that book the character runs a book/movie club. They read the book, then they watch the movie and they discuss their thoughts and feelings about both. And I thought what an amazing idea! I am definitely on the side of loving adaptations. I know they will be different from our beloved original material… but I just get so excited to be able to see what they’ve come up with. So after reading that in With This Kiss, I came up with the idea to do ‘Book vs Adaptation’. I’m hoping to do one of these each month, but it will depend on what time I have, as for already existing adaptations I want to rewatch them so it is all fresh in mind.

I’m starting this feature off with a different type of adaptation. A stage play adaptation! I had the pleasure of going to see the stage adaptation of The Ocean At The End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman at the start of March. I read the book the week before going and then went to the theatre to see it. So here are my thoughts of both the book and the stage version of this fantastically weird story!

Edit (2025): Please note that this book was read and reviewed (and the play seen) before the allegations came out regarding Neil Gaiman’s behaviour. Kayleigh does not accept nor support this behaviour and so none of his books will be featured further on this blog, nor are in the possession of Kayleigh’s literary collection. This comparison is being kept online for transparency of previous reading / theatre experiences.

The Book…

If you’re an avid reader of my blog, you will have seen that my review of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane went live earlier this week. I will not be rehashing it all here, so if you want to read my full spoiler free review then you can see it by clicking here.

I enjoyed the book, I found Neil Gaiman’s writing style very easy to follow and dive into, which is refreshing for an adult fantasy book, but I found the storyline so very strange. Right from the beginning, maybe chapter 2 or 3, I didn’t have a clue what the heck was happening. I was so very confused. So it’s fair to say that I didn’t love this book quite as much as I wish I had. Though, I was very glad that I finally picked it up.

The Adaptation…

Now due to my ‘like-but-not-love’ of the book, I went into the theatre feeling a little bit apprehensive. Wondering how the heck they were going to be able to do all of the monsters and such on stage. Would my family who I took with me even understand what was going on, considering I was confused throughout the entire book?

I loved the stage adaptation of this book! It was amazing. For the start of the play (maybe 15-20 minutes) I wasn’t sure. I was a little bored… I usually go and see musicals in the theatre and so I was really missing that aspect. However, once the ‘weird’ parts of the book started… I was obsessed. I am honestly in awe of the staging and everything about this adaptation. It is visually stunning and I felt like I understood the story a little bit more in the adaptation. Not much… it’s still super weird, but a little bit more. The stage adaptation even had me crying at the end, when the book I had no emotional connection with really. Did my family understand what was happening? Kind of… by the second act. It’s still just as bizarre but I feel like this comes off so much better in the stage adaptation than it does in the book.

The Verdict…

I enjoyed the adaptation way, way more than the book. This is very rare for me. I will not be re-reading the book, and I will probably be rehoming the book to save some precious bookcase space… but I would not hesitate to get tickets to go and see it again on stage. It really was incredible. So my verdict of which is better for this time is the ADAPTATION!

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