10 Shows Like Netflix's My Life With The Walter Boys You Should Watch

"My Life with the Walter Boys" shares the story of Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez), a teen moving to Colorado to live with an unfamiliar family friend after the death of her parents and sister. The teen is originally from New York, meaning life on a ranch in the southwest is a bit different than the city she's used to. As she tries to settle in, she faces pranks, jealous teen girls, and two brothers, Cole (Noah LaLonde) and Alex (Ashby Gentry), who are both interested in her. Jackie goes back and forth with her feelings, perpetually confused about the right decision is as she settles into her new normal.

Thankfully, "My Life with the Walter Boys" isn't a one-season coming-of age-series — Netflix greenlit a second season in December 2023, the same month the show debuted on the platform. While you wait for the next part, there are plenty of other shows to watch that fans of the show are sure to love. From exchange trips to new countries and other teens dealing with grief in their own ways, here are 10 shows like "My Life with the Walter Boys" you should watch next.

"The Summer I Turned Pretty" follows Belly (Lola Tung), a sixteen-year-old heading to the same beach house she visits every summer. She spends the warm months with her mother, her brother Steven (Sean Kaufman), her mother's friend Susannah (Rachel Blanchard), and her sons, Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). Both brothers show a romantic interest in Belly after years of excluding her, causing her to confront her feelings, since she's nursed a crush on Conrad for most of her. Over the summer, she has moments with the brothers that help her decide who to be with, from a volleyball game to a debutante ball.

Belly and Jackie are experiencing similar journeys, especially in the second season of "The Summer I Turned Pretty." Both struggle with the death of someone important to them, as Jackie loses her mother, father, and sister, and Belly loses Susannah, who is like a second mother to her. The teens also experience similar situations with two brothers as they each grapple with conflicting feelings. Even the sets of brothers mirror each other, with Conrad and Cole being the brooding football players and Jeremiah and Alex as the "nice" guys.

"My Life with the Walter Boys" is a show just like "The Summer I Turned Pretty" — the two complement each other. Though based on books of comparable premises, the differing locations allow for the main characters to have their own distinct stories and unique series.

• Starring: Lola Tung, Christopher Briney, Gavin Casalegno, Jackie Chung, Sean Kaufman
• Year: 2022 – present
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75%

Amy (Amber Marshall) is a teen girl focused on working with horses on her grandfather's ranch. After the death of her mother, Amy's sister Lou (Michelle Morgan) returns to help with the financial hardships of the ranch and ensure the family doesn't have to sell the property. During the series, Amy grows up, marries, has a child, and reconnects with her father.

Jackie and Amy work through their grief over the deaths of their mothers. While "Heartland" doesn't feature two brothers interested in Amy, the teen still faces relationship issues with Ty (Graham Wardle), just like Jackie does with Alex during the first season. Even later on in their story, Amy has to come to terms with what happens to Ty and brave how her life will change. Though Amy is more involved with the horses than Jackie is, Jackie becomes more comfortable and confident with them the longer she's in Colorado. Amy presents a picture of the skills Jackie could gain the longer she's with the Walter family.

"Heartland" is perfect for "My Life with the Walter Boys" fans looking for a long-running show to binge. With over 250 episodes, it's an ideal series to add to a watchlist. The series both have ranch settings, providing a chance to see what else could happen on the Colorado ranch Jackie now calls home, while also encompassing the small-town vibes the New Yorker is getting used to.

• Starring: Amber Marshall, Michelle Morgan, Shaun Johnston, Chris Potter
• Year: 2007 – present

"Looking for Alaska" is about Miles (Charlie Plummer), affectionately called Pudge, as he adjusts to life at a new boarding school. The teen is looking for something more interesting, which leads him to attend Culver Creek Academy in Alabama. He makes friends with his roommate Chip (Denny Love) and Chip's friend Alaska (Kristine Froseth), a girl Miles falls in love with. However, after an accident, she dies during the school year, causing Miles to come to terms with his feelings and the mystery that surrounded her life and family.

While both main characters experience grief over the loss of people they feel close to, "Looking for Alaska" presents it from a male perspective, a dynamic that isn't always represented in teen media. Miles's life isn't uprooted to live somewhere new like Jackie, especially because he makes the choice. Everything he knows turns on its axis because Alaska, and his new friends, help him learn more about himself. Jackie's situation is similar as she adjusts to a life she never thought she'd have, taking chances and trying new things.

"My Life with the Walter Boys" and "Looking for Alaska" are book adaptations that highlight the more difficult parts of being a teenager from two different points of views. Jackie and Miles share their confrontations of death and adjusting to new schools and environments. While the Netflix series has multiple seasons, the Hulu show is a miniseries, making it a bingeable, one-day watch.

• Starring: Charlie Plummer, Kristine Froseth, Denny Love, Jay Lee
• Year: 2019
• Rating: TV-MA
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

To help put her on the right track after a school expulsion, Summer (Sky Katz) heads to Australia to stay with her mother's friends for the summer while the matriarch is on a work assignment. Summer instantly butts heads with everyone and is unhappy with her living situation, eager to get back to New York. However, as she starts to make friends and learn more about surfing, everyone's favorite sport there, she realizes that maybe a summer in Australia is exactly what she needs.

Summer and Jackie are dropped into a place they've never been, or don't remember well in Summer's case, and believe themselves to be New York girls at heart. While Jackie lashes out by skipping class and getting drunk with Cole, Summer immediately tries to book a flight back home and continues to cause chaos as she pushes against her host family. The young women are fighting for control of their lives in different ways, and their actions are a direct result of that.

"Surviving Summer" and "My Life with the Walter Boys" feature teens in small, unknown-to-them towns when they'd rather be anywhere else. They both have two guys interested in them and grapple with their feelings surrounding everything in their lives. They make the most of it by devoting themselves to extracurricular activities: surfing for Summer and track and student council for Jackie.

• Starring: Sky Katz, Kai Lewins, Lilliana Bowrey, Joao Gabriel Marinho, Savannah La Rain
• Year: 2022 – 2023 
• Rating: TV-PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) wants to enter her sophomore year of high school as a new person. After the death of her father during her school concert, she's determined to change her social image and score a hot boyfriend. During the rest of high school, Devi learns more about herself as she tries to choose between Paxton (Darren Barnet) and Ben (Jaren Lewison), comes to terms with her father's death, applies for college, and all the friendship bumps that happen along the way.

Like Devi, Jackie tries to occupy her thoughts by focusing on something else. For Devi, that's landing a boyfriend initially, for Jackie, it is continuing her pursuit of a perfect Princeton application. Boys are distractions for both teens, but in a way that forces them to confront how they feel about themselves and what they see for their future. At the end of the first season of "My Life with the Walter Boys," Jackie opts to run back to what she knows rather than face Cole and Alex. Devi does something similar when she tries to transfer schools for her senior year.

"Never Have I Ever" and "My Life with the Walter Boys" feature lead characters that are on self-discovery journeys. Both are rebuilding their lives after the death of family, trying to bury their feelings in something else and adjust to their new normal. And, "Never Have I Ever" has familiar antics fans of "My Life with the Walter Boys" will love.

• Starring: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Poorna Jagannathan, Richa Moorjani, Jaren Lewison, Darren Barnet
• Year: 2020 – 2023
• Rating: TV-14
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Victor (Michael Cimino) starts at a new high school, giving him the perfect opportunity to come out and share with his family and new friends that he's gay. It isn't quite that simple though, and he deals with the lack of acceptance from his family, navigating dating and teen drama, and who he wants to be. In later seasons, Victor's friends face similar challenges, like Felix's (Anthony Turpel) distress over conflicting romantic feelings for Lake (Bebe Wood) and Victor's sister Pilar (Isabella Ferreira) and Mia (Rachel Hilson) worried about her family's potential move.

Jackie and Victor are starting at new schools, giving them both the opportunity for a clean slate. In Victor's case, this means wanting to be open about his sexuality, for Jackie, it's making new friends and finding her place in a large family. The two teens struggle with their coping skills, with Victor hiding in a straight-passing relationship and Jackie pushing her feelings down and setting all her sights on Princeton to avoid thinking about her loss.

Like "Looking for Alaska," "Love, Victor" is a male perspective featuring comparable themes to "My Life with the Walter Boys." Jackie and Victor are hard on themselves, and though it's about different topics, they ultimately learn how to give themselves grace with the help of their new friends.

• Starring: Michael Cimino, Rachel Hilson, Anthony Turpel, Bebe Wood, Mason Gooding 
• Year: 2020 – 2022
• Rating: TV-14
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

What happens when a teen girl applies to a Korean boarding school on a whim to surprise her long-distance boyfriend? Kitty (Anna Cathcart) finds out when she's accepted to the Korean Independent School of Seoul (KISS). Her late mother attended the school on exchange too, so Kitty sees the opportunity as a way to have a personal connection to her that her sisters don't have. However, things immediately go awry when she shows up and Dae (Choi Min-young), her boyfriend, is seemingly with someone else.

Jackie and Kitty are plopped into an environment they know nothing about and that's drastically different than what they're used to. While Kitty tries to find her way to school after missing the shuttle from the airport and adjusting to the social hierarchy, Jackie looks for her place at her new school. Like Kitty, Jackie has items to help connect her to her family. Kitty uses her mother's journal as a guidebook, and Jackie holds a special place for a teapot she and her sister used.

"XO, Kitty" and "My Life with the Walter Boys" share strong female leads who find their place. Both are equally as spunky, unafraid to throw witty one-liners to someone bothering them, like when Jackie highlights Erin's fake luxury bag (Alisha Newton) and any time Kitty interacts with Min-ho (Sang Heon Lee).

• Starring: Anna Cathcart, Choi Min-young, Gia Kim, Sang Heon Lee, Anthony Keyvan
• Year: 2023 – present
• Rating: TV-14
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) joins the high school basketball team, much to the chagrin of his half-brother Nathan (James Lafferty), the captain. The teens share a father, but he was never active in Lucas's life until he saw he could be good at basketball, something the patriarch has been pushing Nathan to excel in. Because Lucas and Nathan are in two incredibly different social circles, tensions rise, especially when family and girlfriends are thrown into the mix.

The half-brothers grew up in the same town, but that is where their initial relationship ends. Though they start off as enemies because of the basketball team, they grow to understand each other and have a better rapport. Because the show follows their back and forth, there are similar dynamics between Cole and Alex when it comes to their dating lives, especially because they are both interested in the same girl, their place within the family and how they handle their social status at school.

For audiences that enjoyed the push and pull between Alex and Cole in "My Life with the Walter Boys," "One Tree Hill" is the show to watch. It shows where their story could lead with future seasons, particularly depending on how everything plays out when Jackie returns from a summer in New York. And, like "Heartland," there are plenty of episodes to binge in this teen drama, with nearly 200 across nine seasons.

• Starring: Chad Michael Murray, James Lafferty, Hilarie Burton, Bethany Joy Galeotti
• Year: 2003 – 2012
• Rating: TV-14
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68%

"Sweet Magnolias" follows the lives of several families in a small South Carolina town called Serenity. The Townsend family is recovering from a divorce caused by patriarch Bill's (Chris Klein) infidelity. Dana Sue Sullivan (Brooke Elliott) and her daughter Annie (Anneliese Judge) are adjusting to the chance the family is complete again with the return of husband and father Ronnie (Brandon Quinn). Helen (Heather Headley), the town's attorney, is dealing with complications in her own romantic life, from reconnecting with an old flame to being with someone new.

The series strikes a great balance between the teen storylines and the adults, just like "My Life with the Walter Boys." While Jackie is the main character in the latter, the Walter parents, their adult son Will (Johnny Link) and his fiancé Hayley (Zoë Soul), and the school guidance counselor Tara (Ashley Holliday) also have significant narratives throughout the first season of the show. The former doesn't just focus on the teens Ty Townsend (Carson Rowland), Annie, and Kyle Townsend (Logan Allen), but also on the show's namesake, the sweet magnolias Maddie Townsend (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Dana Sue, and Helen.

For those that enjoy the charm of the small town "My Life with the Walter Boys" takes place in, "Sweet Magnolias" is a series to see. While the settings are in two different spots in the United States, like many dramatized small towns, everyone knows everything about everyone. It means everyone knows who Jackie is the minute she arrives, even when all she wants to do is hide.

• Starring: JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Brooke Elliott, Heather Headley, Logan Allen, Anneliese Judge, Carson Rowland, Justin Bruening
• Year: 2020 – present
• Rating: TV-14
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%

Figure skater Kayla (Grace Beedie) tries adapting to a new life when her family moves to England so her twin brother, Mac (Dakota Taylor), can join an elite hockey team. She has to leave the skating partner she gelled with behind, and while her parents try to help her find another, it's to no avail. Mac's transition isn't smooth either, as he works to integrate himself into a team and prove his worth to them and the coach.

Though the circumstances are different, Kayla and Jackie don't handle their moves well. They feel like their families didn't consider their needs when planning the move. Kayla's move across the pond is for her brother's hockey career, to the detriment of her ice skating career, whereas Jackie's is determined by a document she has no say in. They handle these feelings differently, with Kayla regularly speaking out about it to her parents and Jackie bottles hers up, but their situations are alike.

"Zero Chill" is the most sports-rooted option on the list, but that's what makes it perfect for fans of "My Life with the Walter Boys." It's also a coming-of-age story, and the ice sports focus shows how universal Jackie's struggles are, no matter the situation or setting. And, Jackie and Kayla share a spunkiness that's difficult to find.

• Starring: Grace Beedie, Dakota Taylor, Jeremias Amoore, Anastasia Chocholatá, Leonardo Fontes, Jade Ma
• Year: 2021
• Rating: TV-G
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 62%