TPL Teens

Review by Sudipta, member of the Cedarbrae Youth Advisory Group.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (movie), is a Netflix Original movie, released on August 17, 2018. It is based on the famous American novel, with the same title written by Jenny Han in 2014.  The book itself has two sequels, "PS. I still Love You," and, "Always and Forever, Lara Jean". This book spent 40 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list in the Young Adult fiction category. It was published in 30 languages, as well. The movie had become viral within a day and currently has 92% rating on rotten tomatoes and according to Google users, 99% have liked the movie so far!

* Caution!* Plot Spoilers. Scroll to the last two paragraphs without any plot spoilers.

The movie starts off with Lara Jean eating a Korean dinner with her family of four which include her widowed father, her high achieving older sister, Margot and her quirky little sister Kitty. Lara Jean, later on, explains how she wrote a letter to her crushes every time she had one and there are five in total that she had never mailed out. 

The school year starts and somehow the letters get mailed out. After the letters are received by the boys, three of them -  Peter, Josh, and Lucas - confront Lara Jean. Peter was Laura Jean's seventh-grade crush who  first confronts her about the letter. Lara Jean's excuse to him is that she was just trying to make Josh jealous. Peter, then, makes a deal with Lara Jean. In return for not telling Josh, Peter suggests that Lara Jean help him make his girlfriend, Gen, jealous by 'fake dating' him. Lara Jean agrees to do so. 

Josh incidentally is Lara Jean's best friend as well as Margot's ex-boyfriend and when Josh confronts her, Lara Jean slowly but eventually decides to tell him that she did have a crush on him before but wasn't going to betray her sister. As for Lucas, Lara Jean finds out he's gay. 

Peter and Lara Jean have a great time 'fake dating', making Gen jealous. Eventually, both develop feelings for each other. It also turns out that, it was Lara Jean's younger sister, Kitty, who sends out the letters in the first place! In the end, the fourth boy who is from Model UN  and also gets the letter, visits Lara Jean's house with the fourth letter. There seems to be a hint of the second book.

Not surprisingly, the book and movie have quite a few differences. Some examples are the distribution of the letters happen much faster in the movie. Peter confronts Lara Jean during Phys. Ed, while in the book Peter confronts her near her locker. Lara Jean runs home with embarrassment and without explaining. 

Another difference is that Peter and Lara Jean become a couple in the movie, but in the book, they don't and she decides to write a letter to Peter again. One last example is when Kitty sends out the letters in the movie, she does it with the intention of finding love for her sister but in the book, the reason is that she is mad at Lara Jean for jokingly confiding to Josh that Kitty had a crush on him. Apart from the above differences, the book and movie have the same story-line.

I, personally think that this is a great romantic comedy, it has a good story-line that is truly related to teens and youth nowadays. I also look forward to seeing if they will make another movie based on the second book. There was much suspense throughout, the movie as well as many humorous jokes that had the audience laughing.

Check out other books and eBooks available with the Toronto Public Library by this author

In conclusion, I believe 'All the Boys I’ve Loved Before' is a great movie for teens and youth as it relates a lot to the love problems such as love triangles. It also portrays sibling misunderstandings as well. I would definitely recommend this movie as well as the books!