To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
Series: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, #1
First Published April 15, 2014 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Young Adult
355 pages
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Buy: Book Depository, Amazon
Find on Goodreads
What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them… all at once?
Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.
Review
I was set to study Japanese Kanji last night but I was exhausted. Our dog has been waking us up early, like 3:30-4:00 am for a week’s straight now that’s why I’m so tired and have been nursing a nasty eye bags eversince. But I guess whatever state you are in, if you’re a pure blood bookworm, you can’t go to bed without reading at least a few chapters from a new book, so yep, I did. I’ve been scrolling in my e-reader what should I read and then I stumbled to this one. The title itself is quite intriguing so I said, just one or two chapters and then I’ll go to bed.
I started my July with some intense reads, intense anime and intense Japanese lessons, so when I read the first chapter of this story, I was kind of, how do I say this… I felt like it’s been forever since I’ve read a cozy book like this one. It was so light to read that even if I was exhausted, I feel so relaxed.
I’ve been planning to just read two chapters but I can’t seem to stop. There’s really nothing interesting going on, and when I said interesting, there’s still no romance scene yet. I just keep reading until I decided to finish it even though I have a ton of things to do at work the next day haha.
Pretend relationship is quite cliché, so I really don’t have any idea why I liked this one. I dunno, maybe because Peter won me over? Or because the idea of your goodbye letters being sent out to your old crushes was kind of amusing? I also love that it doesn’t just involves teen romance; being conflicted about who to love or whether you should go for it but it also gave us a sweet family bonding between the Song sisters and their father.
I can also relate when Lara Jean pointed out how we used to be mindless about our family and not getting along with our siblings and let our mothers deal with it alone. For this story, the Song sisters lost their mother an early age and I can’t imagine how hard it was growing up, good thing the eldest, Margot was very responsible and keep the family going.
And ofcourse, aside from the family vibe, I really enjoyed the romance. I’m always a sucker for teen romance but I can’t tolerate teen angst, but luckily, this one has zero angst. Like, na da! The romance, even though it’s just pretend was really romantic. It was romantic but not trashy and is totally clean, so readers of any age can absolutely read To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before without any problem at all.
For Lara Jane, I kind of totally relate with her character. We definitely have our own share of crushes and I think Peter was right when he said she only goes for guys who won’t like her back, those that are unattainable. I mean, like yeah right? One example would be celebrities haha. But I also agree to her when she said it’s so much better to love someone nearby than looking at them from afar. And I’m glad she was able to figure that out herself and in the end finally willing to let go of her worries and go for it. As what she said, goodbye doesn’t always mean forever. I also love how her characters becomes mature and responsible especially that her older sister, Margot, goes to college. Her struggles to become a good big sister material to her younger sister was so rewarding to read. She’s afraid, yes, but I love how she persevere to make herself better.
For Peter, well, let’s just say that I’m not really taken by his character on the early chapters of this book because he sounded like a jerk or something close to being one. But man! I didn’t expected I’ll be liking him this much. He’s totally far from just the pretty boy but with zero personality. He’s definitely something and I liked it.
Josh. Well, I’m pretty sure at the first chapter that I’m going to like him. The perfect boyfriend material and he’s a good family friend too. But as the story goes on, I shifted that admiration to Peter. I guess that’s because he doesn’t have much scenes in this story, if he had, he was pictured out as a jealous judgmental boyfriend. He did some poor judgments, and we all do too right? So who am I to judge anyway.
The conflict was something you normally encounter in most teen romance stories. Fabricated rumors spreading out and all of the kids talking about it, and looking at you with disgusts. I normally don’t like stories using rumors as their conflict but I was surprised with my reaction to this story. I expected myself to be disappointed or scream something like “unoriginal” but I didn’t. Well, it’s a teen romance after all right? Besides, Jenny Han wrote this one wonderfully so we won’t lose our cool.
This was my first time reading a story of hers and I’m definitely be reading more. I like her writing style, the words she used, everything, excluding the ending haha. I didn’t know this one has book two so I expecting of HEA.
I am being spiteful today so I am giving this one a 4.5 star rating because of the ending. It wasn’t really an annoying, hair pulling ending but something that will make you want to rush the bookstore and get a hold of the second book. It’s a good thing right? But the ending left us wondering what Lara Jean will do next and what she is going to write in her first ever love letter. Not a goodbye letter but a plain love letter.
Having another book about them getting back together or making up was too painful for me to imagine. It may be like, the guy will screw up now that she’s finally ready to step up and face everything. It’s just, I dunno, it makes me think of something worse. I am dying to find out what will happen next, but I guess I’ll wait for a week or two and make sure to save all the sweet scenes this story has into my memory before pursuing the second book.
If you want to relive your first love or your fun childhood memory, then let To All The Boys I’ve Ever Loved Before accompany you.
Challenges
- 2017 New To Me
- 2017 Mount TBR Reading
- 2017 eBooks Reading
- 2017 You Read How Many Books?
- 2017 Review Writing
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About Jenny Han
Jenny Han is the New York Times bestselling author of Shug, The Summer I Turned Pretty series, co-author of the Burn for Burn series, and most recently, the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy. She is a former children’s bookseller and children’s librarian. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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