OKAY so I am a big book worm and since starting college I have had limited time to keep up with my reading. However, I made a promise to myself that I would indeed read the book To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before before I watched the new Netflix film. I had heard many positive comments from my friends who had watched the movie, but none of them had read the book previous to it. This was also intriguing and lead me to want to write this review even more.
SO to begin, the book shocked me quite a bit. Jenny Han is a terrific writer and truly knows how to make a reader feel as if they are in the shoes of the narrator. I loved every twist and turn of the book, and how much detail was supplied to the reader. I could fully experience what Lara-Jean was feeling every page I turned and I felt I learned so much about all five of the boys she wrote love notes to. I enjoyed the book so much, that I went to my local library to read the second!
After finishing the book, I was completely ready to take in the movie. When I started watching it, I felt many things had been missing. Due to having to keep the movie under a certain time limit, the directors removed many small details that added a great deal of context to actions and characters. They changed the age of a couple characters and even a few important events in the love notes. Additionally, they did not go into depth about the three other boys Lara-Jean wrote love letters too. Although when they first created this movie, they were not considering that this could be a sequel, and thought those details were unnecessary. However, I felt by not adding those details, you lost the reason of why she wrote five love letters in the first place. Nonetheless, I still really enjoy the movie. It was fun and definitely kept the movie watcher interested the whole time. Although some actions felt they did not have the correct meaning behind them, I could still follow the movie, trying to block out my knowledge from the book.
Overall, if you are a huge book reader, I do not think you would enjoy this movie as much as you would reading the book. However, if you are more of a movie goer, this is definitely the rom-com for you.