Jenny Han and Sofia Alvarez have never met in person. In fact, prior to this interview, the author and screenwriter behind Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (available for streaming August 17) had never even spoken. Even so, they’ve managed to bring a tender, lighthearted romance to life—starring a perfectly average teenager who doesn’t need a makeover to grow or change by the end of her story.

Directed by Susan Johnson, the film is charming across the board—but it’s the story at its center, written by Han and adapted for the screen by Alvarez, that makes it stand out. Based on Han’s best-selling Y.A. novel, To All the Boys follows high-school junior Lara Jean Song Covey (Lana Condor), after her hatbox of love letters—one for each of the five boys she’s loved in her life—mysteriously goes missing. Our protagonist, who would much rather fantasize about love than actually fall into it, is suddenly forced to face her feelings head-on, navigating potential suitors including her middle-school crush, Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo), and her older sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh Sanderson (Israel Broussard), while simultaneously dealing with all the other stressors that come with being a teenager.

“When I wrote the book, I went into it hoping to write a modern, classic love story that felt really warm and cozy,” said Han. Hers is a story about a young girl who is comfortable being the sidekick in her own narrative, before suddenly finding herself to be the heroine: “I wrote [Lara Jean] for the girls who aren’t quite ready for the next steps.”

Alvarez made sure to honor that conception in her adaptation, using voice-over and internal monologue to get us into the head of a girl who, well, lives too much in her head. “I was thinking about my own high-school experience a lot,” the screenwriter said. “Particularly being in early high school and younger, and the idea that you want these sort of [romantic] relationships and love, and [how they feel] so comfortable in your head, but then can feel so uncomfortable in real life.”

The result is a movie that’s relatable without feeling clichéd, and hopeful without being unrealistic. This is in large part thanks to Lara Jean, who’s sweet and fanciful and unassuming, the kind of girl who’d rather stay at home and bake cupcakes, or watch The Golden Girls with her little sister, Kitty (Anna Cathcart), than go out to parties. She isn’t the most popular girl, but she isn’t an outcast, either. She just prefers to keep to herself—until, of course, she’s forced not to. When Peter first confronts her about his letter, she literally faints on the spot.

“I’m a huge fan of rom-coms, and it’s made me so sad that we’ve had this little dearth of [them] for the past 15 years or so,” Han said. “I love them because I like to feel hopeful at the end of a story.”

The film is the latest entry in Netflix’s recent push to revive the genre—though even now, it’s still radical to see an Asian-American character front and center. Prior to this summer, even seeing an Asian-American as an object of desire (in a non-fetishizing way) was practically unheard of. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, however, features a young Asian-American protagonist without centering the story on her race. Lara Jean and her two sisters are half Korean and half white, yet even though their ethnic/racial identity is a large part of their lives, it isn’t the only thing that defines them.