To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before – Jenny Han
Length: 355 pages
Published: first published April 15th, 2014
I was given To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before as a Valentine’s Day gift. I devoured this book in a short amount of time. It was a really cute and lighthearted read.
{Synopsis from Goodreads}
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.
*****
Laura Jean Song is the main character and the story is told through her eyes. She is sixteen years old who lives with her widowed father and two sisters. Her sister Margot is first introduced as a high school graduate who will be off to college in Scotland very soon while her younger sister Katherine (goes by Kitty) is just nine years old. Laura Jean spends a lot of time with her family. The girl’s mother passed away a few years before the story takes place. Margot is seen as the mother figure as she takes control and organizes the households schedule to a T. So Laura Jean is a bit overwhelmed when Margot leaves and she feels that it’s up to her to keep up with the organized schedule especially when the ordeal of her five secret love letters get sent out by mistake to five boys that’s she’s previously loved. And Laura Jean admits that she does fall in love easily.
The main focus of this story is about Laura Jean’s letters but also her relationships with those boys. Two main ones are Josh and Peter. I absolutely adored Peter and Laura Jean. I loved how carefree they were with each other and their ‘romantic’ situation made me laugh. As the story progressed topics of love and sex were brought up and I found Laura Jean to be fairly naïve about it although Jenny Han writes very elegantly when it comes to delicate issues so that they are not crude but rather inquisitively asked and answered maturely.
My favourite character was Kitty. For a nine year old, soon to be ten, she was super sassy and I loved it!! Kitty has a high fashion sense; Laura Jean consistently asked her for advice and had her braid her hair in different ways. Their sister relationship was perfect. They fought a bit but also knew when to make up and help each other out. I also loved that Kitty was so involved with Laura Jean’s personal romantic life, she brought some comedic relief to Laura Jean’s drama.
Honestly, I don’t even think there was anything that I disliked about this book! It was just a cute and funny, lighthearted read that made me laugh. I have never read a book by Jenny Han before so I was glad I enjoyed it.
Jenny Han is an American writer from Richmond, Virginia who writes children and teen books. She received her MFA in Writing for Children from the New School in New York City and currently resides in Brooklyn. Check out more from Jenny Han here!
Alright, rating time: 1 – 10:
Drama: 9
Romance: 9
And since I was recently asked for an overall rating for a book, I’ll start doing that now! I give this book an overall rating of ****/5.
So I would recommend this book to anyone who loves or needs a simple and sweet high school romance read. I would rate it PG-13. There is no sexual content other than a steamy hot tub make-out scene that doesn’t not have any explicit details (this may or may not be sarcasm :P). A few curse words within it- we can blame Peter for that ;). Also, there is a sequel to this book called P.S. I Love you. I have read it already and I didn’t love it as much as this one but I still would recommend reading it too J Hope my review helped! If you agree or disagree with anything on my review please leave a comment below!
Happy Reading!
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