Geek Girl is one of Netflix’s best shows of 2024! The story of awkward teenager Harriet Manners, it’s a romantic comedy-drama about school, family, and the fascinating world of fashion! If you’re dying for a second series, you’ll eat up these fifteen fascinating fun facts! And if you’re left needing more Geek Girl, why not try our quizzes? See how much you know about the series, or find out which character you’re most like!

1. It’s based on a book series!

Geek Girl began life as a book series by British writer Holly Smale. The first book, Geek Girl, was published in 2013. The series was originally intended as a trilogy, but ended up being six books! There’s also a short spin-off written for World Book Day, and short stories set at Christmas and summer. The TV series adapts the first book only, so there’s a lot more story to tell!

2. The book won the Waterstones Book Prize!

The Geek Girl series comes with some impressive acclaim! It won the 2014 Waterstones’ Children’s Book Prize, which is a seriously impressive feat! It also scooped some great nominations for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Queen of Teen award!

3. You can watch it on Netflix!

The show was produced for Netflix, so you won’t catch it on regular television! It came out in 2024, and became the second most popular show on the platform for a short while!

4. The author was a model, just like Harriet

Holly Smale has said that the book is based on her own experiences working as a teenage model. Just like Harriet, Holly was scouted at the age of 15 by a London modelling agency. Holly modelled for two years, but didn’t particularly enjoy it.

5. The show stars Emily Carey

The lead role of Harriet Manners is played by English actor Emily Carey. Emily was born in 2003, and their career has been pretty amazing so far! They played the young versions of Diana Prince in Wonder Woman (2017), and Lara Croftin Tomb Raider (2018). They’ve also recently starred in House of the Dragon, and appeared in the music video for “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” by Michael Buble and Idina Menzel!

6. It depicts bullying

The show is about the crazy world of modelling, but it’s also about Harriet dealing with school bullying. This also comes from Holly Smale’s real experiences as a teenager – even after she found success as a model, bullies kept picking on her. Holly says the books were very cathartic for her to write, because they helped her come to terms with her feelings about being bullied.

7. Poppy’s role was changed from the book

In the show Poppy is the main villain – she’s Harriet’s scheming rival who wants to ruin her career AND her relationship with Nick. But Poppy doesn’t appear in the first book at all! She actually makes her debut in the second book, where she tries to sabotage Harriet’s Tokyo trip. She was added to the first series to fill out the story a bit more and add some tension to Nick and Harriet’s relationship.

8. So was Nick’s

Speaking of Nick, his role in the series is a bit different, too! In the book they first meet when Harriet dives under a table at the fashion expo to avoid being spotted. In the series, Harriet spots him walking in the show, and is introduced to him once she’s been snapped up as a model. Well, it’s a lot less awkward than getting caught hiding under a table!

9. Harriet has autism and dyspraxia

Author Holly Smale was diagnosed with autism and dyspraxia after she finished writing the Geek Girl series. She says that she didn’t deliberately write Harriet with either condition, but after her own diagnoses she realised that she had written Harriet with a lot of the traits that defined her experiences. The TV series makes this a lot more obvious, with Holly consulting on the show’s writing and describing it as an extension to her books. The show never actually states Harriet is autistic, though she does display a lot more traits that are associated with autism than she does in the books. These include stimming, having specific interests, and wearing headphones in class.  Lead actor Emily Carey is also autistic and says that they recognise a lot of their younger self in Harriet.

10. Harriet is (sort of) based on Emily Carey’s mum

Emily Carey says that they loved playing Harriet because she’s eccentric and loud – “Not loud in a literal sense, but she’s got a lot of character.” Emily says it’s important for women characters to be bold, multi-faceted and interesting, and they took a lot of performance inspiration from their mother. Emily said in an interview with Radio Times: “I can always find parts of my mum in characters I play, and the correlation between that is the strength.”

11. One of the main locations changed

The series features a trip to Canada for Harriet’s first big fashion moment. But in the book, Harriet and her father actually travelled to Moscow! Canada makes a little more sense for the show, as it is a British-Canadian co-production. Later books see Harriet travelling all over the world, visiting Japan, New York and Australia – maybe we’ll travel there in a later series!

12. It’s a fashion lover’s dream!

If you love fashion, then Geek Girl is the show for you! It features archive pieces by designer John Rocha and specially-made costumes by his daughter Simone Rocha. Other costumes feature pieces by Vans, Saint Tropez, Oscar De La Renta, Bella Freud and Urban Outfitters!

13. Yuji Lee has a different name

In the book series, the character Yuji Lee is called Yuka Ito. It’s not quite clear why her name was changed, though it might be because the book character is Japanese and the actress who plays her in the series is American-Danish-Korean. Yuji is still very similar to her book counterpart – strong, enigmatic, and with a hidden soft side!

14. The show has a lot more social media than the book

Another thing that features heavily in the Netflix series is social media. Harriet faces a lot of pressure to gain an online following, and her bullies also use social media to bully her outside the classroom. This didn’t happen in the book, because social media was totally different in 2013, when lots of people still didn’t use smartphones and TikTok didn’t even exist!

15. We might see a second series!

Harriet still has so many places to visit, so might we be lucky enough to see more? There’s no news out yet, but we can keep our fingers crossed – and if you want more of Harriet’s misadventures, you can always read the books!