Book Review: ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (I-III)’ by Jenny Han

Lara Jean keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. One for every boy she’s ever loved. When she writes, she can pour out her heart and soul and say all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control…

(To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before – Synopsis from GoodReads)

Ratings:

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before – 2.5 stars

P. S. I Still Love You – 1.5 stars

Always and Forever, Lara Jean – Not rated

This review is for all three of the books in the series ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ by Jenny Han.

Oh boy, where to begin… These books were bad. So bad. Not because they were cheesy (which they were), but because of everything else. The writing, the plot, the characters, everything was done so poorly, it started to feel like I was reading a fan fiction (especially in the second and third books) or the diary of a daydreaming teenage girl.

I have so many issues with these books, but it’s too many to write in one review, so I’m going just discuss the one part of these books that I found the most faults with; the plot.

These books had no plot. This is the big issue. Nothing happened. You could read 5 chapters and there would be no story progression. Sure, things did happen that would effect characters and maybe change the story up a bit, but that’s all they did, just change things up.

I am being a little harsh because the first book did have more of a plot and a lot more things happened, but it was still very poorly written.

Characters would randomly go somewhere for a chapter, they’d meet someone or something would happen, but none of that effected the story. For example, in the first book, Peter and Lara Jean have lunch/dinner with Peter’s friends. All that happens is they muck around and give LJ a nickname. It adds nothing to the story, or even the characters. That scene is never referred to again, the only thing we get from it is LJ’s silly nickname. From what I can remember, the characters in this scene weren’t even named. So, what was the point in having this scene in the book? If it doesn’t give anything new to the story or characters, then what purpose does it serve?

This is where my biggest issue with these books come in. I believe that the only purpose these books serve is to be cute. ‘Aw that’s cute’ is the only reaction you can give to anything that happens in the series.

Cute little sister gets a puppy. ‘Aw cute!’ Peter gets LJ a necklace she always wanted. ‘Aw cute!’ LJ’s dad cooks dinner and fails. ‘Aw cute!’

Everything that happens only happens to get the reaction of ‘aw cute’ and it’s so frustrating! None of it is real. Nobody’s life is this sweet. The only thing that isn’t made sweet is the Mum’s death, but it’s brushed over so quickly and serves absolutely no purpose to the plot. The only thing it changes is that it means their Dad has to cook dinners which he’s bad at and ITS CUTE BECAUSE HE CAN’T COOK AND HE DOESN’T HAVE A WIFE TO COOK SO IT’S CUTE THAT HE’S TRYING!

Do you get my point?

I know that I could go on forever talking about this issue, but I won’t because I want to try and keep this as short as I can.

There are only two more things I have to say about the plot. First is that it’s so predictable. Sometimes this isn’t such a bad thing if there is good character progression of if there is at least one thing that catches you off guard, but I never got either of those from the series. It felt like a waste of time reading these books for this exact reason.

The second point is, there should never have been a second or third book. The last two books are the weakest of the three because their plots are so weak. They add nothing new. Personally, I liked the way the first book ended. The series didn’t need to continue after this. If the author really wanted to add more whether to give some closure to the readers or to keep the characters alive a little longer, I thing a little novella summing up everything that happened in the last two books would’ve been perfect.

I didn’t have fun reading these books at all, I actually stopped reading them half-way through the second book and skipped the third one. Instead I read the plot on Wikipedia and it didn’t surprise me at all.

The only thing that does surprise me about this series is that its 3 books long. I would’ve loved it if it stayed as a stand-alone, but it was ruined by the author delivering on the popular demand from fans for it to become a series.

Before I finish up, I just wanted to say that I have nothing against Jenny Han. I think she is a pretty great author and I did enjoy her other series ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ but I’m just very disappointed with these books.

I wouldn’t recommend this series to anyone. I would, however, recommend the first book to anyone who enjoys easy YA romance reads. It doesn’t require much thinking and it is fairly enjoyable. It’s just sad that it dragged on the way it did.