To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #1)
By: Jenny Han
[Fulfilling “A book that’s been made into a movie” as part of the 2021 Fall Reading Challenge.]
“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.”
The brief synopsis:
Lara Jean writes love letters— more like good-bye letters— to her crushes. To put her feelings on paper is to release their hold over her. But when these secret letters from years past somehow get mailed out to these boys, she will have to face the consequences.
One of the boys who received a letter is Josh, her sister’s very recently ex’d boyfriend whom Lara Jean actually liked before Margot ever did. Not wanting to betray her sister, she fakes a relationship with letter-boy Peter to keep Josh from any thoughts of a relationship with her.
A classic high school almost love triangle.
Who will Lara Jean choose?
Of course I have read the book AND watched the movie and can compare both for you today.
Which was better, the book or the movie?
I think we can all answer this together. Ready? 1, 2, 3…. the book!
It’s not that the movie was bad. It was good! And it actually followed the book fairly well— all the major things.
Some main differences: in the movie they depicted her letters as major love letters, not good-bye letters. There is no car accident/Peter encounter. Margot’s coming home at Christmas isn’t as dramatic. The ski trip incident is dramatized in the movie with a viral video rather than just a rumor.
But I felt like you got a better sense of the characters in the book. You understood her relationship and feelings toward them better. There’s only so much in-her-head-narration you can put into a movie. Their burden is to SHOW you the feelings, but the book has the luxury of giving us all the details and the backstories to really understand character relationships and development.
For example, Josh really isn’t in the movie much so you don’t really understand how integral a part he was in their family before Margot broke up with him. Also he just seems angry and confused most of the time which is not the vibe I got from the book.
And you mostly just see Peter’s popular guy side in the movie and don’t understand the nuances that Lara Jean picks up on when they spend time together. That he’s not what everyone assumes him to be. (Although I’m not convinced.)
The book makes it seem like a tougher choice for Lara Jean on which boy she is going to choose.
I thought the movie cast the characters really well (except for Margot). It was a good rom-com. It fits the genre and was a pretty clean movie.
This genre isn’t generally my go-to but I plan to continue to both read and watch the series!
Back to the book…
I liked the writing style but at times it seemed simplistic for a junior in high school. I criticized The Infinite Pieces of Us for being too mature so I don’t know. I must be too out of touch with my high school mind to truly evaluate.
I did find myself oscillating between “That’s not what high school is like!” and “Is that what high school is like?!” And having anxiety about sending my daughters to high school. But that happens with pretty much any high school related show/movie/book I partake in these days. Youths! Am I right?
There were some ways Lara Jean was relatable to my high school self: scrapbooking, fear of driving,, hanging at home on the weekends, and layering the butter at the movies (I mean… who DOESN’T do that…?) and I never wrote love letters but I did save an embarrassing notebook full of MASH/MASHER games that probably shouldn’t see the light of day.
I liked the premise but it didn’t take the path I was expecting and I forget that in this genre there isn’t much plot movement. The letters were the catalyst but the main drive of the book is the day to day interactions between Lara Jean and Peter and Lara Jean and Josh, repeat.
Oddly, I wasn’t that bored reading it, but when I stopped to think about the progression of the storyline I realized not a lot really happened.
I can’t say I really understand the mind of a high schooler who makes decisions about relationships. But in this series, I liked it enough to set that aside and read the story for what it is. Plus, in reality, the brains of high schoolers have not developed enough biologically to be able to consider future ramifications and consequences of their choices very well yet so there’s that.
Other things I liked: the emphasis on family and the fact that Lara Jean, her sisters, and dad were all really close and enjoyed being together. The responsibility Lara Jean felt and took in taking care of Kitty. Their traditions. That when Josh was dating Margot they hung out with the whole family. I like when the S.O.’s make the younger siblings feel important.
And I loved how on my hard copy of the book the title really looks like it was written with permanent marker and not just printed that way.
I’ll leave you with a Lara Jean quote that pretty much sums up romance of all kinds and the point of this series:
“To belong to someone. It seems like that’s all I’ve ever wanted. To really be somebody’s, and to have them be mine.”
XOXO
Brittany
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