One Day: All the differences from the book that I honestly wish I’d never found out

The latest show to break literally everyone’s hearts into a million pieces is One Day on Netflix. Dex and Em have everyone sobbing and I don’t think I’ll ever recover. But before it was a Netflix show, it was a movie starring Anne Hathaway’s terrible Leeds accent and before that, it was a book by David Nicholls.

David Nicholls is known for emotionally damaging most of us as teenagers with his books, and he recently said he took inspiration from his own life in writing One Day. He said: “I’d had my fair share of false starts and blind alleys. Emma’s terrible Tex-Mex restaurant was my Fulham bistro chain, her avocado bathroom came from my bedsit in Battersea.”

But even if it is similar to the author’s own life, there are actually loads of differences between the new Netflix adaptation and the original book. And if you thought the TV show wrecked you, try THIS. Seriously, if you couldn’t handle the TV show, this is gonna break you.

So here are all the differences from the One Day book to the show, just to break your heart that little bit more:

The opening scene is different

In the series, we obviously see Em and Dex meet each other at their graduation party, but in the book, it actually opens with them already in bed together chatting about the future.

Emma lives longer in the book

Okay so I hate to break it to you, but the OGs who read the book actually got two more years with Emma than in the show. The book sets Emma’s death in 2004 rather than in 2002 like in the show. Still mourning those two extra years we could have seen them happy. The extra years in the book show Dex and Em go to a holiday cottage in North Yorkshire, where they talk about their wedding and play Scrabble and are just generally happy for longer. Stop this now.

In the book, Dexter gets a new girlfriend after Emma and the endings are different

So probably one of the biggest changes from the book is the ending of the show. And no I WISH it was that Emma lives and the two live happily ever after forever. But basically in the show, we saw that on the first anniversary of Emma’s death, Dex gets really drunk at a kids’ birthday party and ends up drunk at Sylvie’s. Then on the second year, everyone comes round to make the anniversary and on the third year, Dex goes back to Edinburgh with Jasmine and his dad.

But in the book, these years play out a little differently and Dex actually gets a new girlfriend after Emma dies.  On the first anniversary, Dexter takes his café employees out for drinks before carrying on solo and thankfully there’s no kids party involved.

The second year sees Dexter in his new flat, and he has a new girlfriend Maddy, the manager at his café. And rather than have everyone round to talk about Emma, he simply calls each person up to discuss her. And the third anniversary of her death sees Dexter, Maddy and Jasmine travel to Edinburgh.

Maddy becomes a pretty big part of the book’s ending and their relationship is described as really sweet and healing for Dex. He even calls Maddy up whilst he’s sorting through Emma’s old things and she immediately brings him comfort.

Tilly sleeps with Dex in the book

One quite significant moment from the book that doesn’t make it into the series is when Tilly, Emma’s best friend, sleeps with Dexter in 1992 despite knowing all the history between Dex and Em. Drama! Tilly is also less of a good and reliable friend in the book than she’s portrayed in the series.

The show has a lot more sex scenes in

Speaking of sex, we were actually FED by the producers of the show because luckily for us, the show has a lot more sex scenes than the book. David Nicholls, the book’s author said: “There is a lot more sex in this than there is in the novel. I tend to fade to black and Nicole [Taylor, One Day’s head writer] doesn’t fade to black.” Thank you Nicole!

We were robbed of an iconic Greece scene in the show

When Dex and Em go to Greece in the show, there’s one pretty significant scene that was missed out from the book. After they go skinny dipping, Dexter’s clothes are stolen by a local and he has to run back to the hotel naked with a sack wrapped around him. Robbed!

The show misses out a scene with Emma’s publisher

In the book, in 1977 Emma meets with a publisher who mistakenly believed she was applying for the job of the nanny. This is a pretty big scene in the book but it is skipped over in the TV series and instead, Emma’s success as a writer is much more straightforward.

Dexter’s career is also similar, as when he is axed from his TV job in the book it’s a much bigger ordeal whereas the TV series cuts it down to the one phone call from his agent.

Tilly’s wedding is different

Tilly’s partner Graham is a lot more prominent character in the series than in the book. In the book, he’s actually called Malcolm and we don’t really know much about him. Emma also doesn’t make the big emotional speech at heir wedding.

One Day is available to watch on Netflix now. For more like these One Day book differences and all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Just 14 vibey One Day behind the scenes pics that will make you love the cast even more

• One Day’s Leo Woodall said he had a ‘horrible experience’ filming up Arthur’s Seat

• One Day’s Ambika Mod has spoken out about filming THAT heartbreaking box room scene

Featured image credit via Netflix