To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before – Jenny Han

Hi Everyone!

I hope you’re all well and are having a great weekend. Whilst the rain is sloshing down my windows, I thought this the perfect opportunity to review one of the books I’ve recently finished: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. It was an absolutely gem!

What’s it all about?

Told through the eyes of Lara Jean Song Covey, this novel oozes personality and nostalgia. Lara Jean is a sixteen year old, half Korean, half white girl living in Virginia, USA. Her family is very important to her and she is close to them all. She has an older sister, Margot and a younger sister, Kitty. Her lovely mother died when she was young.

“When someone’s been gone a long time, at first you save up all the things you want to tell them. You try to keep track of everything in your head. But it’s like trying to hold on to a fistful of sand: all the little bits slip out of your hands, and then you’re just clutching air and grit.“

However, she treasures a beautiful hatbox that was given to her by her. Inside she keeps love letters she written to every boy she’s ever loved.

Her older sister is at the age where she is preparing for university. Margot decides she wants to study in Scotland. In her eyes, this means that she cannot stay in her relationship with her boyfriend Josh Sanderson, so she decides to break up with him. This causes shock to Lara Jean because they’d been together a while and Josh was also their next door neighbour.

Following this break up, Lara Jean finds herself in her past as she previously had a crush on Josh. She finds these feelings start to come flooding back. When Margot left, Josh does admit to Lara Jean that she was his first serious crush. To understand these feelings, Lara Jean writes a long postscript for the letter she wrote when she was fourteen, after Josh chose her sister Margot, instead of her.

“If you were mine, I would never have broken up with you, not in a million years.“

Whilst walking down the school corridor, Lara Jean is stopped by Peter Kavinsky. He is one of the guys that Lara Jean wrote a letter too. He tells her he is not attracted to her and Lara Jean, at first, is confused. She soon realises that he is referring to a letter she wrote to him years ago after he himself received it in the mail.

Lara Jean is completely mortified but also doesn’t know how these letters have been delivered. She tells him what caused her to write the letter in the first place. When she was in seventh grade, she and Peter were with a group of friends when Peter kissed her.

Lara Jean leaves school and heads straight home to try and locate her hatbox. But it isn’t anywhere. She’s completely confused. That night, she heard Josh come over and hides in their treehouse. The following morning at school Josh asks her about the letter to him. She lies and denies that she has feelings for him and makes up the fact that she has a boyfriend.

Josh questions her further and Lara Jean says it’s Peter as his was the first name that came into her head as she sees him walking down the hallway. Lara Jean decides to jump into his arms and kiss him, much to everyones surprise. Lara Jean has to explain the situation to Peter who decides to go along with it to make his ex girlfriend, Genevieve, jealous.

Lara Jean and Peter set up a list of ground rules on how to act and behave around each other. The more time they spend together, the more confused Lara Jean feels confused about her feelings about him. Josh becomes jealous of Peter and when she confronts him about it, he kisses her and tells her he wants to be with her. The consequence of this is Lara Jean realises that she no longer has feelings for Josh and wants to date Peter for real.

“I didn’t fall for you, you tripped me!”

Lara Jean is convinced by Peter to go on the school ski trip. Peter tells Lara Jean that he also wants to date her and they end up kissing in the hot tub. The following day, Genevieve tells her that there is a rumour that the two had sex in the hot tub and Peter did not deny it. Utterly humiliated, Lara Jean avoids Peter all Christmas break.

“I delete the picture of him from my phone; I delete his number. I think that if I just delete him enough, it will be like none of it ever happened and my heart won’t hurt so badly.”

With Margot returning for Christmas it is decided that they will hold a Covey recital party, which they had every year before their mother died. Kitty unfortunately invites Peter to the party and he tries to talk to her. However, Josh tries to protect her and Margot ends up hearing about how Josh and Lara Jean kissed.

Margot and Lara Jean eventually reconcile but Lara Jean remains angry at Peter. Eventually, Kitty admits that she stole her sister’s hatbox and sending all the letters that were within. She wanted to get back at her sister for almost revealing her crush on Josh. All three sisters eventually forgive each other. Lara Jean also learns from Kitty that Peter really does care about her.

Kitty returns the hatbox to Lara Jean but this time filled with notes from Peter when they were fake dating. Lara reads them and has a change of heart. She takes out her trusty pen and starts to write a real love letter to Peter.

“Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That’s the part of the risk. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

Final thoughts

This is one of the cutest books I’ve read in a long time. It felt like reliving my youth a little bit. Lara Jean is absolutely hilarious – I couldn’t think of a better teen narrator. I also love the close bond between the three girls. They’re each individual enough with their own voices and character traits which really helps the narrative. There are two other books in this series which I will absolutely read. It’s done nothing but made me smile.

Enjoy the rest of Sunday everyone!

Big love xx