To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Catfairy's First Thoughts Presently at this moment, I am writing this review and swaying to my Lara Jean Motown playlist on Spotify and eating an oatmeal raisin cookie. (I know…I know…Lara Jean…could make much more creative cookies…such as those cowgirl cookies and don’t forget those snickerdoodles!) If I could sum up my feelings for this book in one word, I would simply use a word that isn’t listed in the Cambridge English Dictionary and that word would be…adorbs! To all the boys I’ve loved before made me want to be the fourth Song sister and I just loved all the things about the main character of Lara Jean! I want to live in the world of Lara Jean and raid her adorable vintage outfits and use her heart hole puncher! After all, how can you not love a girl who has a heart hole puncher? description “Because after I write my letter, I’m no longer consumed by my all-consuming love. I can eat my cereal and not wonder if he likes bananas over his Cherrios too: I can sing along to love songs and not be singing them to him. If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcisms. My letters set me free. Or at least they’re supposed to.”-Lara Jean Catnopsis description To all the boys I’ve loved before is the first contemporary romance book of a trilogy who introduces the dainty character of Lara Jean. Lara Jean lives with her father and two other sisters named Margot and Kitty. The sisters call themselves the Song girls because their mother’s maiden name is Song and the sisters have a strong connection to their mother. Their mother died at an early age and they also share more of their mother’s physical features which is Korean and their father is Caucasion. “We are the three Song girls. There use to be four. My mom, Eve Song. Evie to my dad, Mommy to us, Eve to everyone else. Song is, was, my mom’s last name. Our last name is Covey-Covey like lovey, not like cove. But the reason we are the Song girls and not the Covey girls is my mom used to say that she was a Song girl for life, and Margot said then we should be too. We all have Song for our middle name, and we look more Song than Covey anyway, more Korean than white.” The Song girls are an absolute trip! Margot is the responsible and smart sister who plays mom to the whole family. Kitty is the baby sister in the family who is always causing trouble and is way too smart and spunky for her own good! They have so much fun together and have so many cute traditions that they share like the CHRISTMAS COOKIE BONANZA! When Lara Jean falls in love with a boy she writes them a love letter professing her adoration and that’s how she gets these boys out of her system. After she finishes writing the love letter she methodically hides them in a charming teal vintage hatbox that her mother bought her. Until one day the letters are gone and all the five boys “she has loved before” receive her love letters and this is the one moment where all the boys of her past come out of the woodwork and Lara has to make a choice to either hide in her world of love letters or face the truth of her emotions, and finally live her life. Meet Lara Jean played by Tiffany Hwang description Lara Jean is your proverbial dreamy eyed teenager who is in love with love but is terrified of it at the same time. Although she has a dramatic and individualistic style down to her vintage clothes and her innate attention to detail. The character of Lara Jean is someone who fantasizes about love and sees it through rose colored glasses more than the real reality of it. She would rather love the boys from afar and obsess over them but never fully commit to them. Lara Jean truly walks to the beat of her own drum and that's what makes her full of awesomeness! “I think I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you. And Peter does. He seems me, and I see him.” -Lara Jean Meet Peter Kavinsky played by Harry Styles description “That’s when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good.” -Lara Jean Peter Kavinsky’s is one of the five boys that Lara Jean professed her undying love to. Peter is that quintessential guy in school that one loves to hate and hates to love at the same time. He is a popular jock who everyone is friends with and who everyone wants to be friends with. Peter has such a self-assurance about himself that it can make anyone feel that all is good and right with the world. “I think you’re cute. In a quirky way.” –Peter Kavinsky If I was in high school Peter would be one of my fictional high school boyfriends! He is just the most appealing, irresistible, and infuriating character that I have ever read about! Peter is someone you want to kiss and slap across the face at the same time! The back and forth banter between Lara Jean and Peter is just priceless and he brings out the feisty side of Lara Jean. Peter brings Lara Jean out of her shell and makes her realize that love is not a sugar-coated fantasy and in order to love someone you need to first be honest with yourself. Meet Josh played by Skyler Astin Josh is part of the love letter debacle as well and also part of a love triangle between Lara Jean, Peter, and Josh. Josh dated Lara Jean’s sister Margot and when they suddenly broke up Josh receives Lara Jean’s love letter. Lara Jean is horrified by the fact that he received this love letter because she would never admit her feelings to Josh since he dated her sister. In order to avoid conflict, she pretends to date Peter Kavinsky. This also benefits Peter because he is currently breaking up with Lara Jean’s ex-friend mean girl Genevieve for the millionth time and wants to get her jealous. And so the plot thickens… Josh is your typical do-gooder guy that is always there for you when you need it. Josh is like the Dawson Leery in your life that is always there to lend a shoulder to cry on and yada, yada, yada…Honestly, the character of Josh didn't really get my attention. He seemed to be a very dry and humdrum character to me. I felt like I didn't know enough about Josh for me to genuinely like him as a character. There just wasn't enough depth to the character of Josh which leads me to definitely be Team Peter. Now Lara Jean has a choice. Does she want the bad boy Peter (aka Pacey Witter) or the do-gooder Josh (aka Dawson Leery)? description description Jenny Han’s Writing description Catfairy and Jenny Han Book Signing Overall, it’s great to see that YA novels are representing more diversity than ever before. The author Jenny Han who is herself Korean perfectly exemplifies the Korean culture. She also beautifully describes the struggle that Lara Jean goes through with being half Korean and Half-Caucasian. This book is written in the first person and it’s a very character-driven novel and it’s what makes this book come alive! To all the boys I’ve loved before would not have been the same book if it wasn’t for the unique characters that she had in this novel! It is easy to get lost in the world of the Song sisters! When I read this book, I felt like I was personally invited to the home of the Song sisters and I got to know them so well, that I grew attached to each of them. Catfairy Final Thoughts “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 like clutching air and grit. That’s why you can’t save it all up like that.” -Lara Jean Each of the Song sisters will have a peace of my heart and I am so happy that there are two other books in this series so I don’t have to say goodbye just yet! Even though, I love all the Song sisters it is "obvi" that Lara Jean is my favorite of them all! I love how she is an individual and doesn’t change for anyone or anything! Most teenagers have the pressure to conform to what is cool and what is not cool. Lara Jean is her own person and she doesn’t care about that which is an inspiration for all teenage girls. Being yourself is the coolest thing you can be! This book is the kind of book that makes you reminisce on what it is like to truly fall in love for the first time, how you romanticize it in your head, how scary it is, and how amazing it is all at once!

4.5 This was my first Jenny Han book and I am really glad that I read it. I really enjoyed reading this book. It was really good. The story was interesting and really had me hooked from the beginning. I read this book pretty much in one sitting. I could not put it down! The Story: This story isn't really realistic, but it was still a nice cute read. I liked the premise of the book. It sounded really interesting and unique. I can't think of a book with a story quite like this one. I was a fan of the "love letter" idea for the story. I think it is great that the character writes a letter to her crush to get all those feelings out, without having to put herself out there. I am a shy person, so I definitely know the feeling of not wanting to confront a crush. (I definitely wrote about it in a diary instead.) So I found this part to be real. The letters get mailed out to all of these boys and instantly Lara Jean's life gets a little bit more complicated. Yet these complications seemed to be handled quickly and not with much drama. But I was still interested in finding out what the other boys would say when we got to their letters. A lot of things happened in this story and it kept me pretty engrossed in wanting to know what was going to be happening next. But I was left with questions at the end of the story. And I was so happy to realize that there is going to be another book! So I am really looking forward to finding out what comes after the ending of this part of the story. The Characters: I liked that Lara Jean was shy and quirky. It made it easier for me to relate with her. I don't have any sisters, so I don't have the personal connection with the story in that sense, but reading the relationship between these three sisters, really touched me. The relationships felt realistic. It was my favorite character relationships in the story. And their relationship with each other really made me think about my daughters and how happy I am that they have each other. They might fight and get on each other's nerves now, but at least they will (hopefully) be there for each other in the future, when they are older. I also liked the girls relationship with their father. He is busy with work, but still seems to be able to make time to spend with the girls and are a part of their lives. And I really liked that he was apart of the story. It seems like there are times when I am reading a book where the parents aren't in the story much, so I liked seeing the loving relationship between father and daughters. (And it wasn't a huge part of the story, but I was happy to feel like it was included.) I had a love-hate feeling towards the boys. There were times where I liked them, then times were I was sure I didn't want her to end up with either of the two boys. There is a love triangle. And I know what side I am on, but I am still really curious to see how it plays out in the next part of the story. My Recommendation: If you like contemporary stories that have romance and don't mind a love triangle, then I highly recommend this book. It was a cute, fun, and quick read. It grabbed my attention and made me want to keep reading. And when I finished, all I could think was "I want more".

I wasn’t sure what to expect from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Rachel from Paper Cuts reviewed it and rated it highly. And it just so happened that Amazon had it on sale for $1.99 at the time so I snagged it. And it turned out to be the perfect read for me on my beach trip. I needed a quick, fun, contemporary read and this one fit my mood perfectly. I will say quickly that for some reason I was thinking our main character, Lara Jean, was older. I guess because the title indicates that there are multiple boys that Lara Jean has loved before which indicates a full life. Yet this is more of a crush kind of love—at least her earliest letters. As the description says, Lara Jean hasn’t told any of the boys she’s had a crush on before that she’s actually liked them. She writes a letter to each one, seals it, and hides in in a hat box that her late mother gave her. One day this guy at school, Peter, comes up to her and confronts her about the letter he got in the mail. Which was amusing and awkward. Poor Lara Jean. I cannot imagine how embarrassed I would have been had I been her. And so she rushes home to find that none of the other letters are in her hat box either. As a matter of fact her hat box is missing. And while it would be embarrassing enough for all her past crushes to get a letter from her, what she’s really concerned about is her friend Josh. He’s actually her sister’s recent ex-boyfriend. They broke up right before she moved to Scotland to attend college. Lara Jean and Josh were friends before Josh ever started dating her sister, Margot. And Lara Jean kept her feelings about Josh to herself for the sake of her sister. I really loved the way Jenny Han approached this book. Lara Jean has these feelings that she can’t ever act on. A guy that your sister dated, even if you had feelings for him first, is just off-limits. That’s part of the girl code. You wouldn’t date a guy that a friend dated under normal circumstances and that goes doubly for a guy that your sister dated. But Lara Jean wants to be Josh’s friend too so she has to find a way to make it back to normal with him. Peter comes up with the idea of doing a fake relationship with her. He can use her to make his ex-girlfriend Genevieve jealous and Lara Jean can use him to help her get things back to normal with Josh. I loved the relationship that Peter and Lara Jean had. There was no slight romantic tension between the two of them. They were both on a mission, but I loved how they slowly got to know each other and by default their relationship with each other changed. It felt a bit unoriginal, but in one of those ways that is done so well that I can’t find it in me to care that the idea isn’t completely original. Not only was this book about a girl who’s dealing with past feelings and new, changing romantic feelings, but this book is also about a family. It’s about sisters. Margot, Lara Jean, and Kitty’s mother passed away several years ago. Their father is a doctor and works crazy shifts. Margot really stepped up to take responsibility for her younger sisters and to help her father out around the house. But now Margot is getting ready to move overseas to go to college. Lara Jean is going to miss her so much, but she also has to step up to the role that Margot’s been filling in order to help her father out and take care of Kitty. I loved seeing the relationships between this family. Their father isn’t as present as I would like, but it felt like he wanted to be. And I loved seeing Lara Jean in the middle of her two siblings. So we’ve got the relationship with an older sibling and the relationship with a younger sibling. And sisters no less. Considering I have a sister, this story was especially dear to me. This felt like the best sister relationship story that I’ve read—at least when it comes to being even remotely similar to my own sister relationship. There’s love and friendship, but there’s rivalry and fights as well. My favorite quotes: -I’d hoped I wouldn’t cry, because I knew Margot wouldn’t, and it’s lonely to cry alone, but I can’t help it. -…it’s a lot of responsibility to hold a person’s heart in your hands. -If you were mine, I would never have broken up with you, not in a million years. -I want to be his lighthouse keeper while we wait for Margot’s return. But it’s hard. Harder than I thought. -To belong to someone—I didn’t know it, but now that I think about it, it seems like that’s all I’ve ever wanted. -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. … Now everything feels like you had to be there and oh never mind, I guess it’s not that funny. -Sisters are supposed to fight and make up, because they are sisters and sisters always find their way back to each other. -There’s a specific kind of fight you can only have with your sister. It’s the kind where you say things you can’t take back. You say them because you can’t help but say them, because you’re so angry it’s coming up your throat and out your eyes; you’re so angry you can’t see straight. All you see is blood. Overall I was so impressed. Fair warning, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before ends off in a cliffhanger. It was one of those cliffhangers where I NEEDED to know what was going to happen next. Like immediately. Right this minute. If PS I Still Love You was available now I’d have bought it as soon as I reached the last sentence. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before gets 4.5 Stars from me. Have you read To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before? What did you think? Let me know! For more book reviews, check out Somewhere Only We Know - http://sandyfarmer.blogspot.com

HOW GREAT ARE THESE BOOKS?! I’m not actually done with book two yet; that review will come as soon as I am! I had to get my thoughts out about this first one, however. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before made me have a lot of thoughts I hadn’t had before with others. I think that’s why Jenny will, and is, become a very strong force in my reading world. Through Lara Jean, Jenny opened up a lot of my own fears about love, sex, and relationships I’ve struggled with even in my later years in life. On top of that the book also opened my eyes to the fact that change is inevitable. Whether you’re the one changing or the one being left, or feeling like you’re left, behind as everyone else around you is moving forward. As far as the book itself, I have to say screw everyone that thinks Lara Jean is whiny and juvenile. I’m sorry, did we read the same book as everyone else? I know the mantra is not everyone reads the same book the same way, HOWEVER, Lara Jean IS JUVENILE. She’s, what, Fifteen or Sixteen in the first book? She IS a child. She’s a freaking out child who is flipping out because she’s suddenly discovered the letters she’s kept privately are gone. Secondly, she’d now the woman of the house as Margot, her eldest sister, is moving to Scotland to attend college. Being the grown up is TERRIFYING. Even with a parent present, knowing you have to take over is the worst feeling in the world. To some it may be liberating and the jump start into responsibility others might need but to most, it can be a scary place. Lastly, the only other real male influence and relationship reference Lara Jean has had in her life is Josh, (*SPOILER ALERT*) Margot’s, now, ex-boyfriend. Margot and Josh break up so she isn’t doing the Long Distance thing and no one is tied down to each other. Something Margot’s mother drilled into the girls heads and she’s trying to uphold that mentality. With all of this going on I think Lara Jean is an incredibly well handled female protagonist. There’s even times when I think she’s handling things better than I would. There’s also times I wish I could offer her advice of ‘chill out, you’re making things worse, honey.’ Lol! So her letters are gone, her sister is leaving, her sister and the boyfriend broke up which sort of upsets the dynamic of the family, and in all of this Lara Jean still has to be the one to hold the family together while her dad works long hours at the Hospital. Now, Peter Kavinsky, ONE of the boys who received a letter, I have to say I -HATED- him, at first. His pretentiousness drove me crazy! Everyone loves him, he’s a jock, he has a pretty boy face, and he has the hottest girlfriend at school. That seems to be a thing every book writer does once, though. They have to have ONE boy in one of their books thats a pretentious jerk that you wanna smack then later lover. Cassandra Clare did it with Jace, David Levithan did it with Dash, I’m sure there’s a million others. We love to hate them. The one change I did appreciate in Peter that Jenny did was that he came from a wholesome home. Most books I’ve read with a playboy attitude family their home is a wreck. Peter has a little brother, a welcoming and loving mother, a beautiful home, and both sons and mother are close. Which is very important. Despite Peter’s ‘play boy attitude’ he does show that he knows how to take care of a lady. I very much appreciated that side of Peter and it made me grow to like him despite side characters acting, appropriately, to hate him because they don’t know the full personality of him. I don’t want to go too much further into the main plot of the story because I think it’s just brilliant on it’s own. However, the drama that comes out of mailed letters wasn’t something I saw coming. I was fairly certain things weren’t going to go the way it was meant to go. You just have to READ to figure out what I’m talking about! GO! READ! Jenny Han wrote this beautiful duology, now trilogy, from true perspective of clique’s, high school nightmares, first true love, first heart breaks, and anything else you could want in a contemporary read. I’m so excited for the third book, I’m trying my hardest to get the ARC if there is one. Other wise I’ve already pre-ordered the hardcover! LOL! And I have a UK hook up I’m hoping to get the version of since I have the first two in UK versions as well. If you get the chance PLEASE pick up a copy from Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, you’re local indie or any where else you get your books. I promise you won’t regret the read!

I had never expected this to be “my” kind of book. I’d seen the title a million times on the shelves (virtual and otherwise) and it never appealed to me. I was expecting a sappy, melodramatic teen romance. How wrong I was! It was actually the ad for the Netflix movie that compelled me to read this. The story line was so corky and hilarious that I knew I had to look up the book. From the first page about the Song sisters, I was hooked. There are three sisters in all: practical, perfectionist Margot; spitfire nine-year-old Kitty; and dreamy-eyed Lara Jean, our sixteen-year-old narrator. All three sisters are in love with their next-door neighbor, Josh. But Josh is Margot’s boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. She broke up with him because she’s leaving the country for college. And he remains off-limits to Lara Jean, even though she liked him first. Sweet, whimsical, quirky Lara Jean is the kind of girl who wears suspenders with shorts, bakes cupcakes from scratch, and makes scrapbooks for fun. A romantic at heart, she treasures an old hatbox from her deceased mother in which she keeps love letters she’s written to every boy she’s ever had a crush on. Five in all. They are even addressed, but she’ll never send them. They’re for her eyes only. …Until they’re not, because someone sends them. One by one, to Lara Jean’s utmost horror, each boy receives his letter and confronts her. To save face and avoid total humiliation, she becomes entangled in a harebrained “fake” relationship with cocky school stud, Peter Kavinsky. Lara Jean pretends to be his girlfriend so that her sister’s ex won’t think she still likes him, and Peter is hoping to make his ex-girlfriend jealous so that she’ll want him back. But fake dates and fake kisses start to feel a lot like real ones, and suddenly Lara Jean is in way over her head. I loved Lara Jean. I loved the way this book was written. I loved the relationships between the sisters – it was sort of like if Stephanie Perkins had written Shanghai Girls. It goes hand-in-hand with books like Anna and the French Kiss or, to a lesser degree, Alterations by Stephanie Scott. Lara Jean and Peter’s dynamic reminded me a lot of Charlie and Micah in Chantal Gadoury’s The Songs in Our Hearts. I almost wished the author would’ve gone Poisonwood Bible on us and given us a few chapters from the other sisters’ perspectives. This is a spectacularly-written book, which is why I only wished that the ending had been stronger. It did surprise me, but it didn’t totally commit and give me that full-circle satisfaction. I wished it could’ve stood on its own and wouldn’t require reading two additional books to get the whole romance. Lara Jean was so adorable, this book was totally on par with and even about to surpass my love for Anna and the French Kiss, until the ending just kind of fizzled and we didn’t get that pivotal John Hughes moment the whole book seemed to be leading up to. That aside, this was an engaging and laugh-out-loud hilarious read. Jenny Han’s writing style is totally enjoyable and I would pick up another one of her books anytime.

The Covey family are extremely close, especially since the death of their mother a few years ago. Now it’s dad and his three Song girls (their Korean mother’s maiden name) – youngest is Kitty, middle is Lara Jean and eldest Margot keeps the family in line. But when Margot leaves for her first year of college in Scotland, the family are thrown into upheaval. Not least because before leaving home, Margot breaks up with her beloved boyfriend Josh who lives next door and has become so much apart of their family. Now it’s up to Lara Jean to keep their daddy and Kitty in line, to be the responsible oldest sister. But it’s hard when everyone has depended on Margot for so long, and when Josh’s new single status has Lara Jean remembering that she liked him first, but stepped aside when he admitted his feelings for Margot. Life becomes complicated when some private letters of Lara Jean’s are mysteriously sent – worse yet, they’re love letters. Lara Jean wrote five letters to the five boys she has loved (from afar) in her life. Josh is one of them, and in the fallout she can barely stand to be around him. Another is Peter Kavinsky – the most handsome boy in school who stole Lara Jean’s first kiss, and has since been linked to her former friend (now frenemy) Genevieve ever since. When Peter reads his letter he’s both insulted and insulting – telling Lara Jean that while she’s “cute, in a quirky way” he’s not interested in her. But when Lara Jean and Josh’s relationship becomes even most strained by her secret, and Genevieve dumps Peter for an older boy, the two of them come up with a plan to fake a relationship and try to make their respective crushes/ex’s jealous. ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ is the new contemporary young adult novel from YA queen, Jenny Han. It’s the first in a duology, with ‘P.S. I Still Love You’ set for 2015 release. I was really, really hesitant to read this novel. I absolutely loved the first two books in Han’s ‘Summer’ series – ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ and ‘It's Not Summer Without You’ – were brilliant, but final book in that contemporary YA trilogy ‘We'll Always Have Summer’ was absolutely awful. I actually still have a bit of a reader’s grudge against Han for making me fall in love with those characters only to do a complete character assassination in the finale. So, like someone who has been bitten once, I went into ‘All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ intrigued by the premise and adoring the cover (diversity!) but wary of this author I’ve been burned by in the past … but I can safely say Han hooked me again, and this book is now a favourite of 2014. Lara Jean Song Covey is a quite shy, awkward and inexperienced 16-year-old. Han finds a perfect pitch for her, so she doesn’t come across as a Bambi-eyed contrived Mary Sue but an endearing homebody with a penchant for baking and scrap-booking (I could see a lot of my high-school self in Lara Jean). Lara Jean lives the wild side vicariously through her friend Chris, a slut-shamed young woman who has a million stories to tell and is whispered about by their classmates. Han’s first-person narration is really quite beautiful and easy to fall into. Lara Jean has such a lot of history in this town, and connections to so many of her classmates that she brings up old anecdotes about kids she used to hang out with in elementary school. I really loved Han’s scene-setting and getting to know the Covey family, particularly the close relationship between the Song girls. Han’s light touch with discussions of being biracial is also refreshing (Lara Jean grouses that she has a strict “Asian characters only” Halloween costume rule now, since people always assume she's a Manga character anyway). The drama with the love letters and Lara Jean’s old crush on Josh is teased out slowly, but hits like a cyclone when Peter Kavinsky gets involved and comes up with a fake relationship plan for him and Lara Jean (with a warning that she shouldn’t fall in love with him in the process). Readers will know where the story is heading from a mile away, but it’s still a fun journey to get there. Though I will say Han does what she did with Jeremiah and Conrad in ‘We'll Always Have Summer’ – ensuring the “love triangle” isn’t all it’s tangled up to be, not when Josh is so dull and wishy-washy compared to charismatic and sweetly charming Peter. If I have any other small complaints it’s probably about the slut-shaming and double-standard sexism that’s sparked in the last half of the book, but is left frustratingly unexplored (doubly annoying because Chris seems such a perfect character to get to know better at this point, when Lara Jean gets a taste of the sexist shaming Chris goes through on a daily basis). ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ is the first book in a duology, with second book ‘P.S. I Still Love You’ set for 2015 release. There’s no information about that second book, and I’m a little bit concerned about venturing into another contemporary YA finale of Han’s … but ‘To All The Boys’ does leave off on a bit of an emotional cliffhanger, not to mention Margot and Josh still have a story in them that could make for an interesting second instalment. I’m totally invested in the Song girls dramas now, so will definitely be coming back for more. ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ is just plain fun, a YA contemporary that’s good for the soul and had me up until 2AM to finish reading. Highly recommend this book that’s definitely a favourite of 2014 for me. 4.5/5

“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.” This book was absolutely adorable! So this book is about Lara Jean Song-Covey, a half Korean girl living with her two sisters and her dad. In her room she keeps a box filled with the most important things. Inside of it are five letters she wrote to the five boys she has ever been in love with. It starts out with her older sister, the one who has kept the family together since the death of their mom, is moving away to college in Scotland. Before she leave she breaks up with her long term boyfriend Josh who just so happens to be one of the five guys Lara Jean has ever loved. With her sister gone and Josh now available, Lara Jean starts to wonder if her feelings for him have truly gone or if they were just waiting for an opportunity to surface. So first day of school. A new start. Lara Jean thinks that everything is going to go back to normal then Peter Kavinsky, the best looking guy in school, comes up to her and tells her he's not interested. Confused as to what he mean Lara Jean asks for an explanation only to get handed the love letter she wrote him back in 8th grade. Except that his wasn't the only letter who got mailed. All five letters to all five guys have been mysteriously sent, including the one to her best friend, neighbor and sister's ex-boyfriend: Josh. When josh comes to talk to her about it Lara Jean panics and tells him she already has a boyfriend pointing at the first guy she sees: Peter Kavinsky. Now locked in a game of pretend Lara Jean will realize what it is really like to be in love and that maybe it's not as she wrote in her letters. Now let me just say that I really liked this book. I honestly wondered who she was going to end up with the entire time. There is usually that one guy that you know but here I could never really tell. When I thought it was Josh, Peter went out and did something really nice and romantic. When I thought it was Peter, he would go and hang out with Genevieve or do something very Peter-like (which is not usually good). Still I must say I really liked both guys though I would say I liked Peter more and you can see how he changed throughout the book. Now, Lara Jean. I really liked Lara Jean. She was kind and smart and completely relatable. She was one of those characters who would do something and you think, 'oh my God I do that too' or 'hey that is so true', or something along those lines. I found myself really liking her as a character. I also really liked her sister Kitty. As the sister of a nine year old I must I completely relate to that as well. I loved the relationship they had and how adorable yet sightly annoying Kitty was because in the end that's what little sisters are like. I loved that book in fact I'm bumping it to a 4.5! That's right it was that good. My one and only problem was the end. Just when you think that it all works out something like that happens and you get left with less than what you started. I mean seriously, how do you end a book like that? I need to know what happens next. What is on the letter she is about to write?!?! The moment I finished I had to check if there was going to be a second book because I could not believe that a book could just leave us hanging like that. Thankfully there is a sequel, which I will be reading as soon as it comes out. Overall, great book. Would definitely recommend. Review also found on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1058451563

Okay this was pretty cute. I wasn't sure if I'd really be into this book because I don't read a lot of YA contemporary romances (that aren't queer stories). With the Netflix movie coming out I decided I wanted to give it a shot and I really enjoyed it. This review may have some spoiler moments, so if you plan on reading this completely blind I'd stop reading here! If you're interested in my quick non-spoilery thoughts: I liked it, but I didn't love it. It's a sweet quick summer romance that I think is fluffy and fun but didn't really deliver what the synopsis makes you think you're getting yourself into. Also, the writing wasn't my favorite and could sometimes be a bit clunky and not at all smooth. However, I do plan on reading the next two books because I want to know what will happen next. At first I wasn't a fan of our main character, Lara Jean. She is supposed to be sixteen years old, but I honestly feel like she acted like she was a few years younger than that. The overall tone and voice of her character was very immature and young. Now as the story went on I definitely warmed up to her and although her tone was immature and young throughout the entire story, I did also find her sweet and endearing. I both thought she was absolutely adorable and I wanted to slap her because of her incredibly bad decisions. I just didn't love that I had to constantly remind myself that she was supposed to be sixteen. Peter was a favorite character of mine in this story. At first, he seems like this typical cocky overconfident teenage boy (which he most definitely is) but his character arc from the beginning to the end of the story as a whole was one I liked a lot. I really loved him with Lara, not just romantically (fake or otherwise) but also just them becoming friends. I thought they had a lot of great chemistry and they brought out the good parts of each other. I loved all of Lara Jean's family members. I thought Kitty was going to get on my nerves but I even loved her. I felt for Margot, having to step us as the main woman of the house after their mother passed is such a huge responsibility and I felt for her especially at the end of the story when she comes back from college. I also loved their dad, who was an adorable guy. I love that having the girls stay connected to their Korean side, even after the passing of their mom, meant so much to him and he tried new things with them. It's so cute. Honestly, the only character I really hated was Josh. He's in this long term relationship with Margot and then they break up. He seems to kind of get over that fairly quickly the moment he finds out that Lara Jean once had feelings for him. I feel like 1. treating your ex-girlfriend's sister like a rebound seems like a jerk move and 2. maybe don't go after your ex-girlfriend's sister. He's jealous and territorial over her, and he feels like he needs to constantly butt in with his opinions when he finds out Lara is dating Peter. I just really hated Josh.We also have Chris, Lara Jean's best friend. I mostly disliked her, but there's a scene in particular that made me respect her a lot more than I had at first. I think I would like to see more moments of them together so we can see their friendship more. The plot was pretty predictable and generic for a young adult contemporary romance, but I don't think that's an awful thing and I did enjoy myself. It's a sweet story but it doesn't have much originality going for it. I love that the girls are half Korean, and I hope to maybe see more of that in the next books because I am always up to learn about different cultures. And of course I am a sucker for some great descriptions of foods, but the romance and the plot itself was standard. It's a perfect beach read. Dramatic, fluffy, light, and easy to speed through. However, it does have it's heavy moments, especially when it comes to the sisters and the relationships they've had. Also how they all handled the death of their mother and how it affected their sibling relationships. I love how close they are and I love their family traditions.The whole Covey family is charming. My biggest problem with this book is the fact that the readers are told this story is centered around Lara dealing with the aftermath of her private love letters being sent out to boys she's had feelings for in the past. But that is only in the beginning of the book, and the problem gets resolved fairly quickly. Which is fine, but I almost didn't even see a point of there being five letters/boys when only two of them actually matter. At least right now, since there is one boy we got no closure on at all. So we will see how they come into play in the next books. The writing was okay, but not my favorite. The sentences, especially at the beginning of the story, were clunky and had hard stops at the end of each sentence. So it didn't flow very well and it felt choppy. I think it's a mixture of the writing but also the way the audiobook narrator narrated the story. So I am not sure if it was only the writing, but either way the story didn't seem to flow well. I am not sure if it improves as the story progresses or if I've gotten used to it or got so caught up in the story that I didn't notice it as badly. But it's definitely jarring at first. I think the writer is a fantastic storyteller and great at writing believable complex characters, it was just the sentence structure and Lara's immaturity that were negative aspects for me as a reader. However, none of this is stopping me from reading books two and three. I also definitely recommend the movie!! It only spans through the events of the first book so there aren't any spoilers for the rest of the series. I think the movie did a lot of things better than the book, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more. For one, Lara Jean definitely acts her age. She's young and inexperienced but she doesn't react or have the tone of a character a few years younger than her like she did in the book. I actually both loved Lara Jean but I also loved the way the actress, Lana Condor, portrayed Lara. She's absolutely adorable. All the actors & actresses played their characters perfectly. It was so well done. So if you liked the book, definitely watch the movie. I think you may like the movie even if you didn't like the book. It makes me even more excited to continue with the trilogy. Overall, if you're in the mood for a really cute summer romance this would be one I'd definitely recommend. It's the perfect mixture of lighthearted with serious family/romance drama mixed in. It's just so pure and innocent. I want to finish the next two soon because I need to know what will happen next! These are definitely more addicting than I anticipated.

O meu livro chegou em ótimas condições, e é ainda mais fofo pessoalmente. Eu amo a história, é ótima para quando se está necessitado de um romance clichê, porém bem feito. Já li umas três vezes e vou ler de novo hahaha Ah, e essa edição veio com umas receitinhas dos cookies da Lara Jean no final, um amor!

My teen loves these books. If my teens will read it, I will buy it and this was a request.

bello

Qu’est-ce que j’ai aimé ma lecture ! Récapitulons : j’ai décidé de lire ce 1er tome en VO pour faire « les choses bien ». Et maintenant que c’est chose faite, je vais ENFIN pouvoir voir le film En quelques points, voilà pourquoi je vous conseille trèèès vivement de vous plonger dans cette superbe lecture : 1- Je ne m’attendais pas du tout à cette histoire : je m’étais imaginé tout un scénario et c’était pas du tout ça. 2- Concrètement on n’est pas dans un climax de fou avec tensions, retournements de situations, etc.etc MAIS c’est quand même méga addictif. 3- Je me suis énooooooooormément reconnue en Lara Jean. On a vraiment la même façon de penser et d’agir. C’était plutôt dingue. Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler) 4- Parce que oui, posons-nous et parlons-en ! Est-ce que « Peter Kavinsky » n’est pas dans le top 5 des prénoms-noms les meilleurs du monde (fictionnel ou non). 5- En bref, c’était super addictif, les personnages attachants, l’histoire entraînante et on repose le livre en se sentant en panne de lecture jusqu’à obtention rapide du tome suivant. Quand au livre en tant qu'objet, je reste une grande fan d'hardback et je trouve la couverture vraiment canon donc...

I order this book on April 26 and I finished reading it on May 8.. I couldn't put the book down for a second I wanted to know what happened next.. Even tho I saw the movie on Netflix In my opinion I think the book is way more better I just loved it.