I read To All the Boys I've Loved Before

 This week's novel is To All the Boys I've Loved Before, by Jenny Han.

When Laura Jean gets crushes on unattainable guys, she writes love letters, spilling out all of her feelings as a way of saying goodbye, and then she stores them away in a hat box.  She never means for anyone to read them or for them to ever get sent, but that's exactly what happens.  This is more than just regular embarrassing, because one of the letters is to Josh, Laura Jean's sister's long time boyfriend, who she dumped right before going to college and right before the letters got sent.  In order for hi to not get any ideas, Laura Jean arranges to have a fake relationship with Peter, who also received one of her letters and who just broke up with his manipulative boyfriend and wants to make it clear he's moved on.

I found a lot to like about this book.

Laura Jean is allowed to be unapologetically feminine.  She loves to braid her hair and wear cute clothes and bake cupcakes and scrap book and write notes using fancy pens on special stationary.  She does a lot of dreamy-eyed daydreaming.  She's not embarrassed about it, the narration isn't poking fun at her for it or implying she's any less of an interesting person.  She's not given extra interests that are traditionally coded masculine to make her seem "tougher" or "stronger," while at the same time, it's never implied that she's weak.  The fact that I find this so refreshing, makes me a little uncomfortable.  Why don't we see this more?

Oh, wait.  I know why.

I also found the sister's relationships fascinating.  They were good sister relationships, where they squabble and stick up for each other, where they're loyal, but their fights are bitter.  That was well done.  But what I really liked was how directly their backstory affected their characters and their relationships to each other.  Their mother died when they were young, and Margot, the oldest, clearly stepped up to take over the job of mothering.  She keeps track of the family's scheduling, she plans and cooks meals, she makes baked goods for school bake sales.  So when she leaves for college, the family is a bit of a mess for a while, forgetting about the youngest sister's field trip and such.  Meanwhile, Margot is calling home and reminding them to do things they already have on the calendar and telling Laura Jean that junior year is the most important year and she needs to join some extracurriculars and apply for internships.

Laura Jean, on the other hand, has a strand of fear in her that you can trace back to her mother's death.  She's too panicky to drive the car.  She also has trouble getting close to people, and would rather sigh while pining after boys from afar than really get to know them.  She'd rather fake-date Peter because then it's not real, and therefore not scary.

And meanwhile, the youngest sister, who is much younger, and was three when their mother died, has way less baggage than the other two, and really wants a dog.

It's really well done, and I started quietly taking notes.

The last thing I want to talk about are the scene changes.  The chapters are all very short, some only a handful of pages.  And there aren't many scenes where significant events happen all at once.  Laura Jean and Peter will be in the library studying and hell put his head in her lap and she'll shove him off, and she'll feel the flutters, but then the scene will change and she'll be in a class and someone will say something rude.  It's not quite a montage, because everything is in scene, and you'll stay in that scene for a full page or two.  But the scenes will shift without anything resolving, without Laura Jean having a breakthrough or a definite start or stop to a problem.  Furthermore, when they come back together in a different time and place, it's as if friendships get resettled back into their base state.  Laura Jean and Peter will snip at each other and she'll be angry that he's not over his ex, but then in the next scene, they'll be ready to drink each other's sodas.  The way I'm describing it, it sounds like actions don't have lasting consequences, but I saw it as an accurate portrayal of what it's like to have a friendship at school.  You can't have a full conversation in the middle of class.   You snip at each other and then you go to Waffle House, because if given a few class periods, you'll get over it or they'll get over it, and even if you're both kinda still mad, it's not going to keep you from Waffle House.

***

Next Week: The Cursed Queen, a sequel to The Imposter Queen, by Sarah Fine.