Review: To All The Boys I Loved Before: Charming Portrait of First Loves, Family and Growing Up
Book Review: To All The Boys I Loved Before (3.5 stars)
Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I Loved Before takes you back to a time where the opposite sex held a certain mystique, your older sister’s opinion of you meant the world to you and your arch-enemy was that popular girl from cheerleading team.
Our protagonist is Lara Jean Song, a biracial Korean girl who writes letters to her past crushes as emotional catharsis. She never means to send them, until someone mysteriously gets a hold on them and sends them out to all the boys she writes to (why did she even have to put the name and address on them? How did she even get a hold of the address?).
Weirdness and questionable decisions aside, drama ensues as these letters get into the hands of people who shouldn’t be reading them.
A portrait of middle-class teenage life
Lara Jean is your classic introverted, slightly awkward teenager trying to navigate the complex realities of high school friendships and the newness of boy-girl relationships. Throw close family relationships, especially with her sisters into the mix and you’ve got a fascinating portrait of a middle-class teenage girl navigating high school relationships.
Yes, Lara Jean comes off as self-obsessed, whiny and her immature narrative voice grated on me at times. She obviously enjoys some privilege (father is a doctor, sister is able to go overseas to study), so there is no plot angle around overcoming the odds of love — merely a teenage girl coming to terms with herself and taking some responsibility for her life.
You can see this particular narrative style as a deal-breaker, or marvel at its naive, slightly reckless nature.
At the same time, I think back to my own days as a teenager and I can’t fault her for some of the decisions she makes while trying to sort out the mess of her love life. As hormonal teenagers, I’m sure we’ve also made a questionable decision or two.
What about the guys?
As for the guys of the book, they left me cold. Maybe it’s because I’m a guy and I don’t understand what’s so appealing about these two main male characters.
Peter comes across as the stereotypical swaggering cool guy with a sensitive soul deep within and Josh, ugh, he is the annoying older (little brother) who is weirdly still super close to his ex-girlfriend’s family.
Kinda weird, dude. Have you heard of the concept of a clean break up?
Maybe other people find it cute, I don’t know?
A lovely testament to family life and sisterhood.
However, this book redeems itself with its focus on family bonds and sisterhood. Lara Jean is the middle of 3 sisters. She looks up to her older sister Margot and (tries to) take care of her younger sister Kitty (hello, middle child syndrome). Things are all well and good until Margot has to move overseas for university, thrusting an underprepared Lara Jean into the older sister and eldest in the family role.
The sisters are obviously close, and a lot of the book’s memorable parts for me were ironically not the love story part. Rather, it was how Lara Jean navigated her relationships with her father and sisters and struggled with changes in the family unit especially with Margot’s return home.
“When someone’s been gone a long time, at first you save up all the things you want to tell them. You try to keep track of everything in your head. But it’s like trying to hold on to a fistful of sand: all the little bits slip out of your hands, and then you’re just clutching air and grit. That’s why you can’t save it all up like that. Because by the time you finally see each other, you’re catching up only on the big things, because it’s too much bother to tell about the little things. But the little things are what make up life.”
In these poignant scenes, Jenny Han has captured the feeling of the distance you feel when someone close to you (family) moves overseas and returns home. Another plot angle I enjoyed was Lara Jean’s family coming to terms with the death of her mother, who passed away several years ago. Despite her absence, her mother’s presence is still felt in the family.
How do you handle the death of your mother?
Whether it’s her father’s valiant efforts to cook authentic Korean cuisine for them or influencing how the sisters approach relationships; Jenny Han has created a stunning portrait of how grief affects people and the lengths they would go to honor their deceased family member’s memories.
Do you build emotional walls to keep people out? Do you make jokes to lighten the moment when your mother is being discussed? Or do you honor irrational relationship rules to break up with your boyfriend before heading overseas; knowing that you still love the guy?
To All The Boys I Loved Before is a romantic coming-of-age story.
We see Lara Jean’s growth as a character from self-obsessed teenager to someone who attempts to take charge of her family’s household matters (just like Margot) and take some control over her love life.
Whether she succeeds in this light, is up to your interpretation (is ordering pizza for dinner taking charge of a meal?).
While the romantic relationships themselves were hit and miss for me, it’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’s unusual focus on sisterhood, the family unit and its portrayal of loss and grief that stuck with me.
Lara Jean may have had to transform from innocent, self-obsessed teen when she realizes that the letters she wrote impact more than just her. But it’s how the Covey family band together to immortalize their deceased mother and come to terms with their grief that really hit home for me.
