Books vs. Movies “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” 2
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han is, you guessed it, a romance book/movie. As the first of three in it’s series is portrays the life of Lara Jean Song/Covey, a sixteen-year old girl, and Lara Jean writes letters, but not appreciation letters, not birthday card letters, Lara Jean writes love letters. She writes 1 love letter to anyone she has every wanted to get over(crush wise), but when her 5 total letters get sent out(not by her doing), she freaks out and needs to solve this major problem before her world comes tumbling down. Especially because 1 of those letter is to her own sisters ex boyfriend.
— Before you read know there WILL be spoilers !—
The differences in “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” almost made me want to cry. The book and the movie were SO different! Lara Jean is the same and the characters in the book/ movie are the same, but there were a crap ton of both little, and big, moments left out. If you watched the movie would you have thought that Lara Jean and Peter took a mini road trip? Did you know that Josh KISSED Lara Jean while she had a (fake-ish) boyfriend? Do you know how Lara Jean’s mom died? NO, because it wasn’t mentioned in the movie… at all!
ex.1) Peter, in the movie, doesn’t strike me as a antique kind of guy, yet in the book he is. Peter’s mom owns the antique store “Linden & White”(pg.195)(which also wasn’t in the movie), and he has to go retrieve two chairs at an estate sale that is 2 hours away. So of course he invites her, Lara Jean, to go with him on this little adventure/ road trip. Lara Jean jokes about the whole trip, but eventually gives in. While they are in the car Peter see’s his “arch-enemies”, the Epistein’s, who had “cleared the whole place out” (pg.202) before he could get anything at the last estate sale. So when he see’s them he speeds up to make sure he gets to the sale first. Did you know the name Epistein’s after you watched the movie?(I’d bet money that you said no) They get to the sale and grab the chairs before the Epistein’s show up so no problem there, but it’s just disappointing that nothing relatively like this was mentioned in the movie.
ex.2) They were cleaning up after setting up the Christmas tree. They got into an argument. That’s when he kissed her. That’s when Josh, Margot’s ex (Margot is Lara Jean’s older sister), kissed Lara Jean. Josh, the neighbor boy who had know the Covey family for quite a long time, had come over after seeing that Mr. Covey was struggling to bring in their Christmas tree. So Josh, as a good person, decided to help out. Later on he stays and helps set up the tree, and a little later, Mr. Covey and Kitty (Lara Jeans younger sister) left. Now, this okay because Lara Jean and Josh had always been best friends, but after the letters got out he didn’t know what to think of her. So they were talking, they got into an argument about Peter(Lara’s now fake-ish boyfriend, read the book and you’ll understand), and he kissed her. Trust me I did not see that coming, and guess what. No one in the movie saw it either, and do you want to know why? Well it’s simple you see… it wasn’t included in the movie.
I only reported 2 out of the many little(and big as you can see) things left out of this movie(more than in “Me Before You” my first book article), but I absolutely loved this book, so again, if you’re into romance put this on your list.
