Love, Lara-Jean

Siella Agostino

To All The Boys I've Loved Before

by: Jenny Han

     “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. That’s why you can’t save it all up like that. Because by the time you finally see each other, you’re catching up only on the big things, because it’s too much bother to tell about the little things. But the little things are what make up life” (Han 294).

     The novel, To All The Boy’s I’ve Loved Before, by Jenny Han centers around Lara-Jean Covey who is a young girl that lives with her older sister Margot, her younger sister Kitty, and her dad. Her mother had passed away when she was very little which led Margot to take on a motherly role in each of all lives.

     When the book begins, we learn that Margot is leaving for college soon which means that Lara-Jean will have to fill her shoes. Lara-Jean is a hopelessly romantic teenager and whenever she has an extremely strong crush on someone, she writes them a letter expressing herself. As she says in the book, “When I write, I hold nothing back. I write like he’ll never read it. Because he never will. Every secret thought, every careful observation, everything I’ve saved up inside me, I put it all in the letter. When I’m done, I seal it, I address it, and then I put it in my teal hatbox” (Han 1). She uses these letters “for when (she) doesn’t want to be in love anymore. They’re for good-bye” (Han 1).

     So far, she had written five letters in total. One was to her neighbor Josh Sanderson, who is also Margot’s boyfriend. The others were to Kenny from camp, Lucas from homecoming, John Ambrose from Model UN, and Peter Kavinsky who was Lara-Jean’s first kiss. After Margot breaks up with Josh and leaves for college, Kitty finds Lara-Jean’s hatbox and sends out all of her letters without telling Lara-Jean.

     She finds out on the first day of school when Peter approaches her and tries to confront her about it, but then she kisses Peter in order to make Josh think that she doesn’t like him anymore even though she still does. It turns out that Peter had recently broken up with his girlfriend Jen who despises Lara-Jean.

    This leads Lara-Jean and Peter to form a fake relationship and to pretend their dating to make Jen jealous and Josh think that Lara-Jean isn’t still in love with him. Though this romance starts out fake, it develops into a great friendship and later, maybe something more.

     I absolutely love this book! I am a hopeless romantic like Lara-Jean and simply love the storyline and idea behind the novel. Since I started reading it, I got sucked into the intriguing story of past loves, current loves, and the line just in between. I love this book as much as I do because I love the storyline and little twists that it entails, I can truly relate to the characters, and because the book made me forget I was even reading and made me feel a part of the story and inside Lara-Jean’s head which is what makes a book stand out to me. I was really able to relate to a ton of the characters, especially Lara-Jean. Similar to Lara-Jean, I am a very optimistic and quirky person that looks for the best in practically everyone and everything. Like her, I love romance and everything that goes along with it; the way she can be both shy and outgoing is relatable. She is fun, but not over-the-top, and is social, but not necessarily popular which I think is a type of character in between the stereotypical Nerd or Queen Bee that isn’t normally represented or seen in a lot of books or movies. Since I am this type of person, I connect with Lara-Jean’s character and personality a lot which led me to like the book more.

     I very much enjoyed reading this book because of its adorable storyline. I love romance of all forms, and this book is entirely filled with that! There are so many striking relationships and friendships that will absolutely make your heart melt, and that’s my favorite part of almost every story. When a book can make me so invested in these relationships that I forget I’m even reading, as this one did, it must undoubtedly be an excellent book. This book especially portrays teen relationships in a very realistic manner that shows how cute young love can be without being too overly dramatic and unrealistic. It certainly shows the theme: “love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That’s the part of the risk” (Han 354). Along with this theme, many other themes are prevalent and are shown in very realistic situations such as the many struggles of growing up which are shown throughout everything going on in the entirety of the book and how people change and can be perceived differently than they truly are like Peter is. Since these themes are extremely pragmatic for teenagers, the conflicts and problems that the characters faced really resonated with me. There’s just something about reading and hearing about different love stories that make me so joyful, and this book absolutely did that with its never-ending adorable moments both big and small, its realistic dialogue, and with its subtle, yet fitting plot twists that will make you swoon.

     Additionally, this novel easily allows you to get deep into the main character's head and inner thoughts in a creative way. It uses her letters and her scatterbrained and paranoid thoughts to show readers how she feels and her true personality. Han uses vivid imagery and thorough descriptions throughout the whole novel which really aided me in understanding what was going on and made the novel incredibly easy to understand. This genuinely made me feel as though I was inside of her head and seeing everything through her eyes instead of just thinking of things from an outside perspective as I find myself doing with most books. It really made a difference in enhancing the way that I saw everything that happened and made my experience reading the book a lot more enjoyable. Also, since I actually thoroughly enjoyed the book I was reading, it made me forget I was even reading at some points which is what I believe a good book should do.

     Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves romance, unexpected relationships, and really recommend it to absolutely anyone who is a sucker for a great teen romance and coming-of-age story like I am. I encourage people to read this book because of its adorable romances, relatable characters, storyline, and because of how it will completely suck you in and make you feel like you are a part of the story. It is an incredible novel that is very lighthearted and is a nice, cheerful read.