Author: Jenny Han
Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: 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.
Cover:
Warning: My reviews contain spoilers/semi-spoilers.
This book was actually a lot better than I thought it might be. A lot different, but better as well. I thought it might have sort of the same layout as Love Letters to the Dead or The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Ava Dellaira and Stephen Chbosky respectively.
However, this book is told in a story mode, with the occasional letter mixed in. There were only five, and one (or two?) of which we never see.
Plot. Most of the story is our protagonist, Lara Jean, pretending to date one of the guys she sent a letter too in order to impress one of the other guys she sent a letter too...who also happens to be hopelessly in love with her sister. So, obviously, guy no. two is off-limits.
But then...her sister breaks up with Josh (guy no. two) and suddenly Lara Jean finds her letters gone. To her complete and utter horror, she finds via the first boy she ever wrote a letter too, the letters were all mailed.
Josh also received a letter, her most recent one, and when he confronts her about it, she panics. She brushes the whole thing aside like nothing and claims to have a boyfriend. This boyfriend, on an act of impulse, is Peter, who 'stole' her first kiss and was the first boy she was ever in love with. He's also in love with someone else: his ex-girlfriend, Geneveive, who is the prettiest girl in Lara Jean's grade. Peter agrees to pretend to be her boyfriend so they can both make Geneveive and Josh super jealous.
Because this sort of plan always works out.
Anyway, onto characters. Lara Jean was a funny character, and I was relieved to find that she was also an intelligent one. She saw a situation, and while her immediate mind panicked, she usually found her way out of it. Yay for strong female protags! Even if she was a bit of a jerk to her little sister...
Josh I really liked, but even from the beginning I always liked him more as a friend of Lara Jean's than a boyfriend. He was really sweet and caring, but not too perceptive. He was perfect for Lara's sister, Margot, though, which was good.
Peter. Most people don't like douche-baggy boy love interests, but I always have and I guess I always will. Peter was a jerk for most of the book, until he wasn't and was really sweet and caring and super sensitive to her attention. By the middle-end of the book, Lara Jean was the light of his world and I found that adorable.
Problems. The only really big problem with this book was predictability. You kind of knew the ending of it from the beginning. The way it dealt with this, however, was to make the journey to the end as interesting as possible.
Adorable book with fluffy characters, a great easy realistic fiction read for any age.
xxAvalon
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