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

Book: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Author: Jenny Han
Published: 2014
Source: Local Library

Lara Jean Song has loved many boys, but never one who’s loved her back. She formed a habit of writing a goodbye letter to each boy and hiding it in her treasured hatbox as she gets over them.

Suddenly the letters disappear, sent out to the boys who were never supposed to see them. Lara Jean finds herself facing the consequences of her own emotions for the first time.

The most horrifying consequence is that one of the letters went out to Josh, her next-door neighbor, and also her big sister’s recent ex. Desperate to stop him from thinking she still likes him (although she sort of does), she begs one of the other crushes, Peter, to pretend to be her boyfriend. He’s amenable because he’s trying to make an ex jealous. They embark on a fake relationship, but as it goes on, Lara Jean gets more and more mixed up about what she wants. Is it Josh? Or Peter? Or neither?

It’s everyone’s worst nightmare - your old crushes suddenly discovering the feelings you hid so deeply! Okay, not the worst nightmare. Zombies and public nudity are probably worse, but this is right up there. Han explores this situation by having Lara Jean encounter all her old crushes again in the course of trying to get the letters back. Some are great, some are horrifying, some are, “What did I ever see in him?!”

Lara Jean starts off the book childish and impulsive, almost slappably so. But as the story goes on, you can see her maturing. Is this because she’s having to face the consequences of the letters? She always crushed on boys silently before, never giving any indication of her feelings. Is it because she is having to step into her older sister’s Margot’s place as the caretaker of the family, or possibly coming out from under Margot’s shadow? Is it because she gets the opportunity to see how she herself has changed over the years, through the lens of the boys she once crushed on? For me, it was a mixture of all those things.

I was a little disappointed in the end because it left us dangling as to the resolution of Peter and Lara Jean’s story. Although Lara Jean had made a decision, we didn’t get to see the effects of it. Luckily, according to the author’s blog, there will be a second book called P.S. I Still Love You due out in the spring.

Reading Roundup: October 2014

By the Numbers
Teen: 16
Tween: 1
Children: none
(All Cybils reading, all the time!)

Sources
Review Copies: 7
Library: 9

Standouts
Teen: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
The story of Blue and her raven boys continues to unfold at a leisurely pace, though there's progress toward the climax that devoted readers of this series have been dreading for three books now.
Tween: The Islands at the End of the World by Austin Aslan
Though the character is stated to be seventeen, she read younger to me. Kids who can handle rough and tough survival stories will be drawn to this. Like Mike Mullins in his Ashfall series, Aslan has given careful thought to the large-scale ramifications of the end of the world, and the Hawaiian setting is an interesting new one.

Because I Want To Awards
Longest Awaited: Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan
Seriously. The entry date on my wishlist in LibraryThing is 2012, so even though this just came out I've been waiting a loooooong time for this one. I was happy, if gutted at points, with the way things ended up.
Should Feel Overstuffed with Diversity: Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis
But it doesn't, and that's amazing. Between the two main characters, we have a minority (Mexican
, with mentions of Spanish and Nahuatl spoken in the home), two disabilities (one with a prosthetic leg, one mute), and bisexuality. And yet, the book isn't about any of that, but about two people trying to navigate a very difficult situation together, not always easily or well. Nicely done, Duyvis.
Just Because I Want to Talk About It: Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson
As the world is falling apart, Bird is coming into her own as a young black woman, and starting to see the machinery that might be behind the seemingly random flu pandemic that's sending the nation's capitol into a tailspin.