This is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. 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: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.
So everyone and their cat told me to read this book and the cover just didn't sell me on it. It's very middle school girl meets world and I just wasn't feeling it...until I hit my book slump recently. So I figured, why not? and picked it up anyways. End result: mixed feelings.
First, look at this cover. If you're not a middle school girl, does it really appeal to you??
And the premise is just a little too, well, girly. She writes love letters to all her crushes and keeps them hidden away never to be seen by anyone. I can understand that writing your feelings can be therapeutic (I write a blog so I can sympathize there), but isn't this just asking for something to go wrong? Maybe I'm just a more private person, but if I was gonna write love letters to my secret crushes I would have to burn them afterward just to make sure no one EVER saw them.
But long story short, her letters get out and she has to deal with the backlash of all these boys learning that she loved them. (hence my burning idea) The worst one is definitely her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh.
To be honest I pretty much hated Josh. He had his nice qualities but he played every one of those sisters and knowingly or not convinced them to fall in love with him. NOT COOL DUDE. He only actually dated Margot (the eldest sister) but when he found out Lara Jean had feelings for him he didn't turn her away. He basically was like 'why didn't you tell me? we could've had something??' to which Lara Jean replied 'ummm no. you're dating my sister.' So he kissed her and she was like 'NO YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH MY SISTER!'
He really made a mess of everything and showed little to no remorse about it. By the end of the book I really hated Josh. Not sure if that's how I'm supposed to feel, but that's what happened.
Peter, on the other hand, was the one redeeming quality of this book. Not to say that I didn't like Lara Jean, I did, but she was just very wishy washy. Understandably so, I was once a teenage girl so I get it. But Peter was lovable. He had flaws, but owned up to them and in the end I was team Peter. Even if Lara Jean wasn't...or was. The ending was very abrupt and THAT I was not a fan of. I honestly couldn't tell you what happened after the ski trip. The book just stops. Good on the author for making me buy the next book just to see what happens, but as the reader...WTF!?!?
Sidenote: I related to Margot the most out of all three sisters. She decides to go away to school, partially to have new experiences and partially to see if they still need her. I did the exact same thing when I went to college. The most emotion I felt the entire book was when she comes back for winter break and sees that they did all the family traditions without her. That first year when I came home it was weird because I didn't help put up the Christmas tree, or bake cookies, or decorate the house. It was all done and it was like a really hard smack in the face. The book is from Lara Jean's POV so Margot's feelings were glossed over but I could totally understand her struggle and I really didn't like how it was brushed aside so we could go back to totally focusing on Lara Jean. But that relationship between both sisters spoke to me the most because a few years ago that WAS me and my little sister. So from that perspective I liked those segments of the book the most, even though that was probably not the author's intention.
I knew going in that this book wasn't a standalone, but still. Every book deserves an ending of some sort. In the end this book became a really long prologue that just makes you read the second book anyway. Since I haven't started the sequel yet I'm still miffed about the cliffhanger.
Rating: TBD (if the sequel goes well then this review may become more optimistic in the future)
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