To All the Boys I've Loved Before

I watched the Netflix movie of the same name before I decided to read the book, and then I watched it again over the weekend (even though I was still in the middle of the book) because I loved it so much. It's a great book-to-movie adaptation.

The book is also cute, but I found some of the characterizations to be better in the film. Like, I wasn't a big fan of Margot in the book - she was really pushy and judgy, more so than movie Margot; I also agree with other reviewers that movie Peter is better than book Peter, even though book Peter seemed more realistic to teenage-boyhood.

But I liked Lara Jean and Kitty and how much regular, real-life family stuff there was in both iterations. Like, I remember being a kid and begging my parents for a puppy (we never did get one) and my dad making us help with whatever “Dad Surprise” dinner he thought up, and being jealous of the cousin I perceived to be “cooler” than me. I remember getting rides home from school with the neighbor boy I liked, even though there was no chance he would ever like me back and his girlfriend super hated me for carpooling with him. I remember taking school overnight trips where the kids would sneak out of their rooms and smoke cigarettes out the hotel windows, and feeling uncomfortable with it all as a naive 15-year-old.

It's a teen rom-com, but of course, a teen rom-com with rose-tinted glasses. There's plenty of awkwardness and sweetness, but as Matt said before I made him watch the movie with me, “I'm so glad I'm not a teenage boy anymore. Thirty-one-year-old Matt – and 26-year-old Matt, and 22-year-old Matt – all of them are way better than 16-year-old Matt.”

Ditto, and amen.