Teenage girls are fandoming all across the nation over the new release To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. But why?

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a three part book series that started back in 2013 and was just recently turned into a movie and released on Netflix in August.

I personally haven’t read the book, but I did watch the movie when it came out, and let me tell you, be prepared for waterworks when you watch it. The movie was very well put together for only being a Netflix movie and was filled with plenty of humor, tears, anger, and most importantly, romance.

Lara Jean Song Covey, the main character in the movie, loves to fantasize about romance, but is actually scared of having a real romantic relationship. So instead of telling them, she drafts letters to guys when “she has a crush so intense she doesn’t know what else to do”. She doesn’t send them though; she keeps them in a box in her closet and “rereads them to remind her of how powerful her emotions can be.”

Kitty, Lara Jean’s younger sister, sends the letters to all of her past crushes because she is afraid life is passing Lara Jean by. This results in multiple awkward confrontations with the boys.

Among them are Kenny from camp, Lucas from Homecoming, John Ambrose from Model UN, Josh, who is Lara Jean’s best friend and her older sister, Margot’s, boyfriend, and most importantly, Peter Kavinsky, her crush from seventh grade, who seizes the opportunity to make his ex-girlfriend, Gen, jealous by asking Lara Jean to pose as his fake girlfriend.

As you can expect just like in any rom-com, their relationship develops and they both end up realizing their feelings for each other real. Just like any other relationship, they fight a lot, even when they are fake dating, and have to get over some hardships. But they settle their differences and end up making the cutest couple and add unrealistic goals to us girls who fantasize about those types of relationships on TV and in movies.

One of the only things this movie could have done better was find a better Asian-American actress to play the role of Lara Jean’s older sister, Margot. She is awfully white for someone who is supposed to have an Asian mother. I know a lot of people who complained about that and also complained about not giving Lara a more Asian-American boyfriend for the role of Peter Kavinsky.

Otherwise, this rom-com was a hit and I was very pleased with how it turned out (other than the fact it raised my standards for any future relationship I have). It is very relatable in numerous ways. Teens and kids who may have lost a parent can relate because their mother in the movie is deceased and the movie shows many scenes where the children are struggling and miss their mother. It is also relatable because it shows that in order to get your feelings across to someone you may like, you must tell them. Keeping everything to yourself and never opening up to someone will get you nowhere.

Even if you aren’t a fan of rom-coms and all the sappy movies, you should still give To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before a try. Who knows? It can end up being your favorite movie.