Written by Elle Hunter
The P.S. I Still Love You movie finally dropped the other week on Netflix after the first instalment, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before charmed us all last year with pastel colours and cute outfits. But how does the new movie stack up to the book? Well, let’s just say there are some big differences.
Jenny Han’s P.S. I Still Love You picks up right after the hot tub debacle, whereas in the movie we get to see the Peter/Lara Jean happy ending play out on the lacrosse field as the credits of the first film roll. So…actually a lot of the second book is about what happened and did not happen in and around the hot tub.
In the book, LJ gets bullied about it way worse, including having stills of the video put up as desktop wallpapers on all the school computers and having the video play live during a school assembly. As we know, Gen is behind all of this which makes it a little more questionable that Peter stands by her, but hey, she’s going through stuff.
On to the first date! This is where the P.S. I Still Love You movie opens and in the book, she makes just as big of a deal about her very first date. However in the book, Peter takes her to the movies and Gen is THERE and she TEXTS him. Lara Jean is just as in her head about their relationship in the book as in the movie, if not more so. Girl, don’t overthink it!
The John Ambrose letter arrives on the scene in much the same way in the book and in the movie, but book Lara Jean writes him back in the book and they become pen pals. Their relationship develops a lot and feels more robust in the books. Lara Jean plans the time capsule party by herself and invites John Ambrose by letter. Chests are similarly puffed between JA and PK, and Peter does bring Gen. As tensions are running high, they decided to revive an old game they used to play: Assassin.
The game is like tag but each player gets the name of one other player at the start and that’s the person they’re responsible for tagging out. Once you tag your opponent out, you inherit their person and so on until only one is left standing. Everyone jokes that LJ is to meek to win the ultimate prize, a wish of the winner’s choice, that she becomes obsessed with victory.
Then, the breakup. It’s basically the same in the book and the movie and it’s totally brutal. Finding out he was waiting for Gen in the hot tub. Ugh. Giving the necklace back. Ugh.
Meanwhile, Lara Jean with her broken heart and all enlists John Ambrose’s help to tag out her last remaining opponent, Gen. His help is convenient because in the book he ends up being Stormy from Belleview’s great-grandson. They have a lot of meetings at the nursing home until eventually by chance Lara Jean sees Gen driving and vows to end the game victorious. Instead, she ends up witnessing Gen’s dad cheating on her mother with a really young woman. So she finds out what Gen’s family drama is and starts to understand why Peter is so adamant about being there for her. But does it excuse hardcore bullying? Who knows. But I did like that they used jung in both the movie and the book to describe their relationship.
There IS a dance in both the book and the movie, but the book version of Belleview is much more standard nursing home instead of the movie version’s art deco dream. Lara Jean throws a USO ball and John Ambrose picks her up in a red convertible and full WWII military uniform. They kiss AND they continue hanging out until Lara Jean’s birthday when Peter surges back onto the scene.
He gives her the necklace back and when she won’t accept it, he insists. He tells her that he’s going to win her back and though she drives off with John Ambrose, he knows it’s over. The girl loves Peter Kavinsky!
