\n\tLove triangles featuring siblings are one of the oldest love tropes in the book. But how many times do audiences really need to see the same clich\u00e9, just with different attractive actors?<\/p>\n
\n\tIn 2025 alone, three projects centered on sibling love triangles will have been released, including season three of The Summer I Turned Pretty<\/a>, season two of My Life With the Walter Boys<\/a> and Prime Video\u2019s new movie, Tell Me Softly. The latter, which released on Friday, is based on author Mercedes Ron\u2019s young adult<\/a> romance novel about\u00a0a girl, Kamila Hamilton, whose seemingly perfect life gets upended when the\u00a0Di Bianco brothers \u2014 her childhood best friends and first loves \u2014 reenter her life.<\/p>\n \n\tThis concept of siblings fighting over a loved one isn\u2019t new. The romantic trope has been around for some time, dating back to author Louisa May Alcott\u2019s 1868 novel Little Women, which also inspired two film adaptations, including one directed by Gillian Armstrong in 1994 and another by Greta Gerwig in 2019.<\/p>\n \n\tHowever, sibling love triangles found a new life in the 21st century, first with popular teen dramas like One Tree Hill<\/a>, The Vampire Diaries<\/a>, Reign and the sitcom Baby Daddy. And though it appeared the trope took a bit of an onscreen break for a few years, Hollywood couldn\u2019t stay away long, as The Summer I Turned Pretty and Walter Boys adaptations followed shortly after.<\/p>\n \n\tWith this much output, it makes you wonder what these shows and movies are trying to project. Once you look past the charming personalities, attractive looks and butterfly feelings viewers get when watching, you realize this trope is actually romanticizing unhealthy dynamics between families and partners. Another observation: most of these love triangles center on one girl and two brothers, but seemingly not the other way around.<\/p>\n \n\tEven if some viewers start to feel a fatigued by sibling love squabbling, there\u2019s still a large audience patiently waiting to binge new content, and the numbers prove it. Also, let\u2019s be honest \u2014 Hollywood follows the views and money.<\/p>\n \n\tEarlier this year, the third and final season of Jenny Han\u2019s The Summer I Turned Pretty stayed on the Top 10 chart for 10 weeks, with 6.57 billion minutes viewed, according to Nielsen. Season two of My Life With the Walter Boys also stayed three weeks in the Top 10, with 2.55 billion minutes viewed.<\/p>\n \n\tBut years before these shows, The Vampire Diaries \u2014\u00a0which centered on a teen girl torn between two vampire brothers \u2014 dominated the CW. When the show premiered in 2009, it was the CW\u2019s most-watched series premiere ever<\/a> at the time. The supernatural drama, which ran for eight seasons, continued to be a hit for the network, with the series finale in 2017 hitting a year-plus ratings high<\/a>. Though its peak was during the show\u2019s freshman outing, drawing upward of 4 million viewers.<\/p>\n