TO ALL THE BOYS
I’VE LOVED BEFORE
By Jenny Han
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Date Published: April 15th 2014
Pages: 355 pages
Goodreads reviews: 4.07/5 (reviews)
To
All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly
admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt,
sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers
that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes
from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from
summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with
her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come
out of these letters after all.
This beautifully written novel is
written by the well-known, wonderful children and teen novels writer, Jenny Han.
The story tells about a teenage girl named Lara Jean. She has one older sister
named Gogo aka Margot who is two years older and one younger sister named Kitty
aka Katherine. She lives with two of her sisters and her dad. Lara Jean always
writes letters to all the boys she has ever had crushed on. But she never
actually sends them. Instead, she just keeps it in a teal hatbox. One of the letters
was written to Josh, Gogo’s boyfriend. Yes, that’s right. Lara Jean used to
have a crush on her sister’s boyfriend, before her sister dated Josh. A few
days before the last day of summer, Gogo broke up with Josh because she is
going to Scotland for college and she doesn’t want her relationship with Josh
holding her decision down. And since her mom has passed away years ago, all
responsibilities fall to Margot. Now
that Margot is going to go far away, it’s going to be Lara Jean responsibilities
to take care of almost everything, including her little sister. Everything was
fine nothing hurt until one day she found out that all five of her ‘crush
letters’ were sent out to every single one of her ‘ex-crush’. This makes her
have to deal with all her old crushes, old friends, etc.
I find this
book a little bit similar with The Summer I Turned Pretty, not that I’m
complaining. In fact, I find it is more like a collaboration of The Summer I Turned
Pretty and The Duff. There’s the story about stolen first kiss, falling for
someone you can’t have, etc. Maybe partly because I just read both books last month
and both still have that effect on me. But the general plot has some similarity
and I actually love the similarities of these three books. What’s interesting
about this book is that Lara Jean parents are a biracial couple. Lara Jean dad
is a Caucasian while her mom is a Korean. That makes the cover even more
beautiful because it related to the book.
Lara
Jean is described as this sweet, innocent, old fashioned girl who never dated and
never had a boyfriend. She is used to live in the shadow of her sister. When
you think about it, it’s more like she’s her sister’s shadow. She looks up to
her so much and quite attached to her that when her sister left she became a
little bit clueless. This makes her feel very anxious and worry about every
little thing that happened. But she managed to survive anyway. . I personally like
Lara Jean. She seems very cool, calm and funny, sometimes, sarcastic. Margot is described as this perfect mature sister
who always takes care of everything and always plans everything thoroughly. She
is so mature that sometimes it makes her seemed emotionless and cold. Then
there is this one guy named Peter who is one of the five boys Lara Jean ever
had a crush on. Peter started off as this pretentious, shallow, cheap, too
confident and down-right obnoxious guy. He is the popular guy from the lacrosse
team that every girls want to be with. But throughout the book, Peter changed
or at least he shows his true self. That is some real character development. I
actually like him the most out of all 5 boys of Lara Jean’s crushes. Peter has
a girlfriend named Genevieve, who used to be Lara Jean’s friend. She has this
unsettling smile which is kind of makes Lara Jean (and me) nervous. It’s like,
her smiling to you means she has planned something bad for you. Another
interesting character is Chris, Lara Jean’s best friend. She is very mysterious
which reminds me of Alaska Young (Looking For Alaska by John Green) but
actually very kind. All the characters in this book are very realistic and so
real. They have their own traits and point of view which makes it very
interesting to read.
There
are some Sleepless in Seattle (MFEO – I knew that acronym from the movie) AND
Harry Potter reference which makes this book even better. Then there’s the
mention of Indonesia, which is my country and I looove when books mention my
country. This novel a little bit slow paced, which is not exactly my go-to book
but this one keeps me turning every single page without even realizing it even
though the beginning is quite too slow for me. Jenny Han writing is style is very
easy to read and it really pulls you in. When you read this book, it feels so
real you can feel what Lara Jean feels and you keep guessing what’s going to
happen in the end because you have no idea. By the time I finished reading
this, I was like ‘wait, what? I thought
there would be more!’
In case
you didn’t know, there is the second book called P.S I Still Love You (spoiler
alerts), which I can’t wait to read! Lastly, I would recommend this to those
into romance young adult/contemporary book or anyone who want to read it,
despite whatever genre you’re into. I would give this book 4.85/5 star. I hope
you guys enjoy this. Have a beautiful day!
P.S: You can get this book online on
Or if you live in Indonesia you can get it on Periplus online or
Periplus bookstore.
“But
the little things are what make up life.”
No comments:
Post a Comment