Review: To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

Jenny Han

(To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #1)

Publication Date: April 15, 2014

Hardcover, 355 pages, Simon & Schuster

Genres: YA, Contemporary

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Lara Jean 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 can pour out her heart and soul and say 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.

My Review

This book has a lot of hype surrounding it, so I totally went into it thinking that it would just be a cute, light contemporary read. And it was. But it wasn’t. And I’m not sure how to explain that. You’ll just have to read it to see what I mean. ;)

Lara Jean has two sisters, an older one and a younger one. Margot, the oldest, has a boyfriend named Josh. Margot breaks up with Josh because she’s leaving for college. Lara Jean has a crush on Josh. Lara Jean writes a letter to Josh about her crush. That letter gets accidentally mailed. Cue a messed up whirlwind of drama and craziness.

Lara Jean is a great main character. She’s the epitome of every homebody girl that just doesn’t understand why people like to go to parties, football games, etc. I think we’d get along great. She also spends a lot of time with her family which makes for some adorable familial interactions throughout the book. Now the love interests, Josh and Peter, are very different. Josh is kind of like the nerdy guy next door, while Peter is the lacrosse star that everyone loves. And while Josh is a nice guy, I just didn’t see him clicking with Lara Jean. But that’s just my opinion.

The plot of the book was amazingly entertaining. While there are some original elements to the story, like the letters getting accidentally sent and the family and boyfriend dynamic, the big plot points of the story have really already been done before, but Han does a great job making all of these situations seem like she invented them. Like the pretending-to-date-another-guy trope or even the ex-girlfriend-is-a-beotch cliché. Nothing about the book seemed like it had been overdone in every Hollywood rom-com ever.

I loved Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty series and I didn’t think that this book would surpass the feels I had for those books (at least the first two, because the last one wasn’t that great), but To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before totally blew me away, and I can’t wait to read the next book in this sugary-sweet duology!

*Note: I purchased a copy of this book for myself.