Lara Jean writes love letters but doesn't send them. She writes until she no longer loves the boy she's writing to, then she puts the letter away in the hatbox her late mother gave her, and she moves on. No one knows about her letters, not even her sisters. Until one of the boys asks Lara Jean about his letter and she discovers that they've all been sent out, including the one letter that didn't work, for the one boy she still loves.
I loved this book. I would write a love letter to this book and I wouldn't even hide it in a hatbox. I would post it straight away. This is exactly the kind of fun, sweet, fluffy YA romance I love best. I loved Lara Jean and her sisters and their dad and Peter (I wasn't overly keen on Josh, I'll be honest), but most of all I loved the food. There is so much food in this book! It all sounds so delicious that as soon as I finished the book I made a huge cake because I needed something good to eat.
The Cake
When Lara Jean's letters get sent out and her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh, discovers that Lara Jean has feelings for him, her solution is to pretend that one of the other boys who got a letter is her boyfriend. It's a weird solution but it kind of works, especially since Peter also wants to make his ex-girlfriend jealous. So it's win-win, right? Except we all know where these storylines usually go and obviously it isn't as simple as all that.
I know everyone's a little love triangle fatigued but honestly, I don't mind it, and it didn't bother me at all in To All the Boys I've Loved Before. However I do wish we'd seen a little more of Josh. Maybe his absence is why the love triangle doesn't feel so triangle-y but he was very present at the start and once Lara Jean and Peter hatched their fake-relationship plan he seemed to take a bit of a backseat, which I think was kind of a shame. I loved all the fake dating stuff though. Boy, did I love it. Even though I knew where it was obviously going the whole time, I still enjoyed every minute. I'm such a sucker and I don't even care.
What makes this novel really great though is Lara Jean's relationship with her sisters, Kitty and Margot. Their mother passed away when Kitty was very young so Margot, being the oldest, became a kind of surrogate mother, and Lara Jean and Margot are both very aware of their responsibilities to Kitty. When Margot leaves for college at the start of the book, Lara Jean feels that it's her job now to take care of Kitty and their dad, while also missing her sister like crazy, and trying to keep up with her fake boyfriend plan without lying to everyone too much. It's a lot to deal with.
Lara Jean is absolutely adorable and more capable than she realises and Peter is the snarkiest lovable jerk I've ever read and, although I found the ending a little bit rushed, I ordered the sequel P.S. I Still Love You the second I finished To All The Boys I've Loved Before and I can't wait to read it and find out what happens next! So I guess the ending worked. Plus, Jenny Han announced a third book in the series a few weeks ago, so my timing is excellent because now I'm finally getting into the series just in time to have to wait until next spring for the third book. Hmm...
★★★★☆
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