Jack Twiller (Michael McKean) gets greetings from a long-gone high-school girlfriend. This makes him open his school's yearbook - his "Book of Love". He remembers the old times, way back in the 1950s, when he was in his last year of high school (Chris Young) and his family just moved to the town. He hung out with geeky Paul Kane and tried to get the attention of Lily (Josie Bissett), who unfortunately was together with bully Angelo (Beau Dremann). He also finds himself attracted to Angelo's feisty sister Gina (Tricia Leigh Fisher).
In the book Jack in the Box, Jack Twiller's experiences are followed from elementary school to high school, while in his screenplay, William Kotzwinkle creates a younger brother, dividing these experiences between two separate characters.
Rita Kempley from The Washington Post wrote: "Book of Love is a mild-mannered foray into the '50s, a modest coming of age comedy that is as thickly nostalgic as a yearbook. Though not strictly a trip back in time, it is a kind of Peggy Sue Got Married for the fellows, a chance to hum some old music and recall one's raging hormones."[3]Peter Travers from Rolling Stone panned the film, stating: "What the world needs now is a lot of things, but I suspect that one of them is not another movie about growing up in the Fifties...William Kotzwinkle, author of the acclaimed novelization of E.T., adapted this script from his book Jack in the Box. But the film's virtues are, at best, modest. For Kotzwinkle and Robert Shaye — the New Line studio chief who is making a sincere but inauspicious debut as a director — the Fifties strike a personal chord".[4]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has three reviews, two positive and one negative.[5]
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