I'm not much of a TV watcher and I did not know this was a show, so I don't know what that comparison would be. It started out with a little too much teenage angst in my opinion, but the main character grew on me. It was an interesting story, but ends without explaining her background or why these things are happening, so it completely leaves you hanging. I guess if I want to know, I'll have to read the next.
I started watching the show this summer and decided to read the books. This is the first book I read, and though I read that alot of people thought it was slow at first, I thought it had plenty of action. The book is a lot more steamier then the TV show - but that could be due to the Family Channel. The nice thing between the two is that though they are different, it is nice to put faces with the characters, and the Family Channel did pick excellent actors to correlate with these characters. I liked this book so well that I would highly recommend it to any high schooler - it was an easy read and I plan to get the other two books and read them as well