Duology: To all the boys I’ve loved Before

Author: Jenny Han

Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult, Fiction

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books

Year: 2014 - 2015

Ranking: 4,3 / 5

 
Synopsis

This duology tells the story of Lara Jean who keeps his love letters in a box. They are not letters sent to anyone. She has written them for herself, one for each boy she has been in love with. 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.

Our story starts from here and it will make us fall in love with her family and each of these 5 guys that come back into her life in some way. Which will keep her heart? You’ll find that just reading it.

The Author

Jenny Han was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. She went to college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and she went on to graduate school at the New School in New York City, where she received her MFA in Writing for Children. She lives in Brooklyn.

Jenny Han wrote her first published book, Shug, while she was in college. Her next project was a trilogy for young adults about a girl's coming of age during summers. The trilogy, which includes The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You and We'll Always Have Summer, quickly became a New York Times bestseller. She released a new book in 2014 called To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Kirkus Reviews said of the book: "An ultimately compelling exploration of teenage growth and young love”.

Personal Experience with This Book

I decided to read "To all the guys that I love" several months ago because it had been on my shelf for a long time and felt it was already saying me I should pay attention to it. I read it exactly in four days and, because I liked it so much, why not reading the second part?

I cannot talk much about the synopsis of both books because I will ruin the review but I'll let my review of the first book HERE. And that way you'll know how I felt at the end of that one and so I can speak a little bit more about my feelings for the second one.

First I want to say that Lara Jean exasperated me many times in the second book. In the first one I related to her a lot but in the second her insecurities made me crazy at times. I understand that the girl has never had a boyfriend but I think Jenny took is so far. On the other hand I loved Peter even more in this book. This man changed from heaven to earth from the first book and I liked that a lot. Although I must say that it is true that many of his attitudes did not help with the insecurity of Lara Jean.

I repeat that my favorite character is and always will be Kitty. I love this girl. She has a very cool personality and it feels she is much older than she really is. Furthermore it adds a lot of humor to the story. Finally, I need to say this about John, I would had been just like Lara Jean.

What I did not like and it took off points to the second book, which I had liked a lot of the first, was that the family relationship lost a little of its importance in the second book and I would have liked very much that she had kept the presence of the whole family in the second book as she did in the first one. Like, we do see interactions between the members of the family but not as much as in the first book.

As I already expressed, Jenny Han’s writing style is not very impressive but it helps a lot to read at a very fast pace. Overall I really liked the story and it left me with a silly smile on my face when finished it. I love these stories because I always end up with a good mood and looking forward to having a boyfriend who loves me as much as they love these girls in this type of books.

The story was very nice and quick to read. If you can get both books and read them it would be awesome. Just to point out that I declare myself #TEAMPETER. I hope you get a chance to read them and that you like them as much as I did.