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

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Series: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #1

Hardcover, 355 pages

Published April 15th 2014 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Source: Gift

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

From Goodreads:

Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control in this heartfelt novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series. What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them… all at once? Lara Jean Song 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 pours out her heart and soul and says 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.

Okay, I need to make this very clear: I AM Lara Jean. Like, I don’t have sisters, and my mom isn’t dead or Korean, but I am Lara Jean. I kind of feel like Jenny Han wrote a book about me. Maybe my (formerly) jerky brother sent her my diary ten years ago, I don’t know.

No, in truth, I think Jenny Han just really knows how to make you connect with a character. Lara Jean is one of the most “real” feeling characters I’ve ever read about. The whole story is very real, I think that even if you are not a Lara Jean in life, you will still totally connect to this story, because don’t we all have some insecurities?

So the writing was phenomenal, and I loved Lara Jean, but why else did I love the book, you ask? I’m just going to list it out for you:
-The Family. So many YA books shy away from family, and this is one hundred percent the complete opposite of that. Family is key in this book. It comes above all else. Lara Jean cares so deeply for her sisters, father, even grandparents. It is so refreshing, honest, and realistic.
-The Boys. They are (again) so real. Multifaceted, no “good guy” vs “bad guy” situations. Just “guys”, with good personality traits, and not-so-good ones; who make some good decisions and some bad decisions, etc.
-The Plot. It is so spot-on high school for me. And let me assure you, I was the Lara Jean in high school. Afraid of everything and everyone, shocked that anyone did “bad” stuff. I was your quintessential goody-two-shoes, but I also was involved enough to understand all the shenanigans that were actually happening, much like Lara Jean. And as for the love letters… yeah. That sounds about right. No actual human would know I’d liked someone, and if they’d ever found out, I would have died of embarrassment. Lara Jean reacts to the things that happen in such an honest and funny way, it is incredibly appealing to read about.
-The Adorableness. This book just has it. It is cute, but in a good way, not a cheesy way. It makes you think about family, and love, and insecurity, and confidence, and growing up, and all those things that people (not just teens, but all people) are thinking about pretty much constantly. But the book asks these questions in such a funny and unique way.

Bottom Line: This is not a book to miss. Definitely one of my favorite contemporaries of all time.

So, were you a Lara Jean? Ever have any similar tales in life and love? I’ll share mine: There was a boy, in college, and I liked him so, so much. We were really good friends, and I didn’t want him to ever know, because I knew full well that the feelings weren’t mutual and I didn’t want our friendship destroyed. Cue one loud-mouthed, drunk friend at a party, and that was the end of my secret. I’d held onto it for about 6 months, so good run, right? Well, I remember running out of the party, onto the rainy street, away from everyone. The guy came out to talk, and of course, let me down nicely. It was awful. We were still friends for a long time afterward, but I felt like the biggest dork ever whenever he was around. Sigh.