To All the Boys I've Loved Before & P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han - Joint Review

The first one, while a little juvenile, was incredibly enjoyable. While Lara Jean calling her father "Daddy" even when she wasn't talking to him directly kind of unnerved me at the beginning, by the end of the book I didn't even notice.

Sadly, I did not enjoy the second one as much. That is not to say, however, that I did not thoroughly enjoy it.

First, let me tell you about how much I adored To All the Boys I've Loved Before.

Lara Jean Song Covey. Oh, how I kind of love you, even though you have a lot of growing up to do (and you definitely should read the duology to get to full character development, but you still get it with the first novel).

Lara Jean (yes, she does go by both names) or Covey or middle of the Song sisters. She's very naive and innocent and calls her father "Daddy" in a non-ironic way. She loves baking, like, so much. I've never read a book about someone who loves to bake so much. (It's adorable, and I'm jealous of her baking skills.) ALSO, Lara Jean is half-Korean (Yea! Diversity! Representation!) and is the daughter of a now-single father.

Lara Jean has loved a few boys in her lifetime, and when she doesn't want to love them anymore, she writes them a letter. A love letter. A goodbye letter. She seals it, addresses it, and puts it in a hatbox her mother gave her.

I would like to quickly rant about how Lara Jean writes her letters. If she never wanted the boys to find out she wrote them, then WHY did she address them?

One day at school, one of the boys she was previously "in love" with comes up to her and starts talking to her about a letter that she wrote him. After a moment, she realizes: this was the letter she wrote him in middle school. (Lara Jean is now a sixteen-year old Junior in high school.) When she runs home (no, she literally runs home), she doesn't find her letters. They've been sent out.

It sounds typical, and it kind of is, but typical and light-hearted contemporary was something that I needed to kick off my summer. Jenny Han also deals with family relationships: being a middle child, dealing with the eldest child moving away, having a single father, and learning how to step up and be the mother-figure in a family.

So, Lara Jean has to deal with her sister moving away (and stepping up to be the "mom" in the family) as well as having to figure out how to deal with all of the boys she's ever loved receiving the love letters that she wrote to them.

It is kind of cliché, so if that's not your thing, then this might not be for you, BUT I still recommend that you try and pick this up because of the family aspect of this book.

Content: PG/PG-13 - Language: Mild to Occasional - Sex: Mentioned

Goodreads Link - Published: 2014 by Simon & Schuster - Pages: 355

FROM THIS POINT ON, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR TO ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE.

So, I bought this book before I even read the first book. I regret that, but then again I don't . . .

I think marathoning this duology was a mistake -at least- for me. I noticed things that other people -people that waited a year to read this book- might not have noticed.

The writing style was very different. Lara Jean -the girl that wouldn't curse in the first book- talks very differently. She says "hell" and "damn" at least ten or fifteen times each in this book. And she seems to have lost a little of her quirky nature. I'm not sure if that was because Lara Jean changed as a character (even though it's only been five days since the last book ended) or if it was Han's writing. I feel like it was Han's writing.

I love seeing the conflict that rests in this book. We see how difficult and messy relationships can be, how Lara Jean has a lot of growing up to do, how she needed to learn how to trust her boyfriend.

While I found To All the Boys I've Loved Before a little cliché and slightly predictable, this was even more so. It only really bothered me because I loved the first so much, and I didn't get all the same warm-fuzzies I want when I read a contemporary.

However, I think Jenny wants to show more than the warm fuzzies with P.S. I Still Love You. She wants to show that to be in a working relationship, you need to not lie, you need to be open with your significant other, you need to trust them, and there needs to be communication for a relationship to work.

I do highly recommend that you read this book if you read the first because it is super enjoyable. It's another light contemporary. It's lots of fun, and I didn't want to put it down!