To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series Review

by Jenny Han

Series Rating: 3.5/5 Book #1 Rating: 4/5 Book #2 Rating: 3/5 Book #3 Rating: 3/5

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before 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.

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This has been a series I’ve wanted to read for a long time coming! I’m glad I’ve finally gotten to it. I really didn’t know what to expect with this series besides a young adult romance.

As a series, I didn’t love it. I found myself extremely annoyed by our main character, Lara Jean’s choices and actions as we got to books 2 and 3. Which was unfortunate because I sincerely adored the first book. If the first book hadn’t ended on a slight cliff hanger, I’d say just stop after the first one, by how much I didn’t care for the rest of the series. But I had to know what happened even at the end of book 2. I was invested by then. So even though I wasn’t fully enjoying the third book, I just had to know how things would end. 

As I mentioned, I really enjoyed the first book. The premise was so quirky. The idea that all Lara Jean’s personal love letters that she had written for all her crushes growing up get sent out, including the guy she’s still hung up on. So to play it off, she’s not interested in him, she fake dates an old crush just to prove she doesn’t, in fact, love the current crush. The fake-dating trope was just adorable to watch. And all the high school drama made me reminisce about my own time in high school. 

Not only that, but I loved Lara Jean’s personality. She felt very relatable to me in that first book with her passion for scrapbooking and other interests. She was just so cute and innocent.

It was the second book that I started to get annoyed. It just didn’t have the same vibe as the first one. One aspect I really didn’t care for either was Lara Jean and her sister’s meddling in pushing their dad to fall in love again. I just really struggled with that a lot, it just felt like their dad was content with just his daughters and the memory of their mom. I didn’t see why they needed to push him into a romance he clearly didn’t want.

I actually was really hoping Lara Jean would fall for the other boy from her past. The one letter she didn’t get back from the first book. Seeing those two reconnect was so cute and romantic, I definitely thought he was a much better pick than Peter, who was clearly still hung up on his ex! The drama around his ex really, really irked me, for personal reasons. I just wanted to yell at Lara Jean for wanting to stay with him after all that drama.

And then the third book frustrated me even more than the ending of book 2. I could get over the fact that Lara Jean picked Peter. But then we lost practically all the tenderness we had in the first book between the two of them. We rarely see our lovebirds together. It really felt like Lara Jean sabotaged all her relationships. While I appreciated the realness of everything, our characters have flaws. But at the same time, they made so many stupid mistakes. This would have been a 2/5 if not for the ending. The ending redeemed this one for me.

So overall, I found this to be cute and sweet. But I could have done without all the drama we saw in books 2 and 3. It just felt very drawn out. But if you enjoy high school drama and teen angsty romance, then I would recommend this series.