If the My Life With the Walter Boys love triangle gives you, like Us, major The Vampire Diaries vibes, that’s because it was meant to.
“There’s always something to be said about love triangles, but it was inspired by Damon and Stefan [Salvatore] from The Vampire Diaries,” author Ali Novak told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published on Thursday, December 7. “There’s just something so compelling about a love triangle, and there’s so many YA books that have been influenced by that show.”
TVD, which ran for eight seasons on The CW, had a central love triangle between Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) and vampire brothers Damon (Ian Somerhalder) and Stefan (Paul Wesley).
My Life With the Walter Boys, meanwhile, has its own love triangle — without any supernatural entities involved. My Life With the Walter Boys dropped on Netflix Thursday, December 7, closely following Novak’s Wattpad novel of the same name.
In the story, high school student Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) relocates from her posh life in New York City after her family tragically dies in a car accident. Jackie moves in with her mom’s best friend from college, Katherine (played by Suits alum Sarah Rafferty) and her large family, including husband George (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Marc Blucas) and their eight children. Two of Katherine and George’s sons — Cole (Noah LaLonde) and Alex (Ashby Gentry) — secretly harbor feelings for Jackie, who eventually starts crushing back on both of them.
Nikki Rodriguez as Jackie and Ashby Gentry as Alex Courtesy of Netflix
Throughout season 1 of My Life With the Walter Boys, Jackie finds herself attracted to the two brothers despite their completely opposite personalities. (Cole is the All-American, football-playing small-town golden boy, while Alex is the shy, bookish type.)
“We wanted to make sure that both boys have equal weighting,” Novak told EW. “And I think there is so much more to this story than just the love triangle.”
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Of course, Jackie will make a decision between the two boys by the end of the first season, but devoted book fans shouldn’t expect the literary ending onscreen.
“We have to make changes to make it work as a TV series,” showrunner Melanie Halsall told EW. “The way that relationships unfold, especially Jackie and Alex’s relationship, is slightly different than in the book. And what happens at the end will surprise people because that is different than the book, but I’m hoping that gives the audience, both the audience that loves the book and the new audience, a bit of a surprise.”
My Life With the Walter Boys is currently streaming on Netflix.
