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." Peter Travers from Rolling Stone magazine 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".