Book Review: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
This is another one of those books that I only picked up because everybody else has read or is reading it. It’s nice to be able to report that quite a good proportion of the hype is justified. It’s certainly easy to see why Netflix were falling all over themselves to turn it into a movie.
Lara Jean Song Covey is the middle sister of three Korean-American girls. Her father is an OB/GYN and her mother died quite a few years ago so they’ve got their routine down pretty good now. Margot, the eldest, is the organisational expert, Lara Jean is her somewhat competent assistant and Kitty, the youngest, isn’t expected to do much yet. But that’s about to change because Margot is going away to college in Scotland.
But before Margot leaves, she breaks up with Josh, her boyfriend of two years who also happens to be the boy next door, because of something her mother said many years ago: never go to college with a long distance boyfriend because you’ll miss out on too many experiences. Which is all well and good for Margot. But Lara Jean is left behind with a heartbroken neighbour who is also one of her best friends. And if she’s honest, she’s always had a little bit of a crush on Josh herself.
Lara Jean has never really been in love before but her routine for getting over her crushes has been to write a letter to them, then seal it in a hatbox in her cupboard, never to be read – she literally puts a full stop on it. But as she starts her junior year of high school, the boys she’s written to all approach her and ask why she’s sent them these letters.
She’s mortified and, of course, she isn’t the one who sent them. When she rushes home to investigate, her hatbox and all the letters are gone. Most of the letters aren’t too bad – her crush on the very handsome and popular Peter was a long time ago and Lucas is now quite obviously gay and she can explain her way out of them without too much embarrassment. But when Josh wants an explanation about what she wrote to him, she brushes it off, lies about dating somebody else now and then launches herself into Peter’s arms in the hallway at school and kisses him passionately in front of everyone. Lara Jean doesn’t care about everyone, she just wants to make sure that Josh thinks she isn’t interested. Apart from anything else, he’s her sister’s former boyfriend and sisters don’t date their other sister’s former boyfriends.
Peter is initially bemused at her “affection” but once she explains, he and Lara Jean come up with a mutually beneficial plan: they’re going to continue having a fake relationship to keep Josh away for Lara Jean’s sake and to either make Peter’s former girlfriend wild with envy or convince her that their relationship is over once and for all – he’s not quite sure which way he wants to go yet. Cue one of the oldest romance tropes in the business.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a really readable book but that’s because the prose is very simplistic, oddly simplistic for the age of the main character. Lara Jean often comes across like a pre-teen and then in the very next moment, she’s fake French kissing Peter in front of everyone at school (and at one point in a hot tub). It also feels like quite a long book but the flip side of that is the longer you read it, the more enchanted you become with the characters. Not with what’s going on – because it’s all a bit ho hum, certainly nothing original, a pretty familiar romance cliché with a pretend couple to make their potential partners jealous – but with the characters themselves.
However, it’s nowhere near perfect. It’s pretty obvious who sent Lara Jean’s secret letters out; I’m not sure why she didn’t figure it out straight away – there was really only one person it could have been. And Lara Jean and her sisters feel like the most unKorean half-Koreans who ever existed. When people of colour talk about wanting to see themselves represented in literature, surely that doesn’t mean just pasting an exotic face on the same old stories that have been told for decades.
There’s no ending either so that makes it clear that there’s going to be a sequel, which is kind of annoying, because that makes it an incomplete book and forces you to read the next one if you want to know what happens. That’s fine for those who are enamoured but for those who were waiting for a good ending to be tempted into reading the next book, it feels like entrapment instead.
Still, it’s a fine effort and a good example of a young adult romance without being ground-breaking.
In a word: appealing.
3.5 stars
*First posted on Goodreads 14 February 2021
