To Peter K, Who I Loved Before

This post is dedicated to Peter (who I loved before). It is filled with spoilers.

So don't read if you don't want to know about the spoilers.

Because this post.

Filled with spoilers.

SPOILERS!

You've been warned.

When I first met Peter Kavinsky, I fell for him, easy. And I loved him so, so much. Lara Jean was me in high school, and Peter was the type of person I dreamed about… Someone who would take off his shoes when he came over to my house without thinking anything of it. Who would respect my family and treat them like his own. Who would want me to hang out with him and his friends even though I was nothing like them and most certainly did not spend my spare time at parties or lacrosse games.

Oh, Peter. How I loved you.

So much of that changed when I read the much-anticipated sequel to To All the Boys I've Loved Before.

Who wants cake? Last slice goes to Peter K. 😉

A photo posted by Jenny Han (@missjennyhan) on Jun 21, 2015 at 5:32pm PDT

UGH. NO. HE DOESN'T DESERVE THE LAST SLICE, JENNY.

Review: P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Title: P.S. I Still Love You
Author: Jenny Han
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: May 26, 2015
Rating: ★★★★

Summary (via Goodreads):

Lara Jean didn’t expect to really fall for Peter.

She and Peter were just pretending. Except suddenly they weren’t. Now Lara Jean is more confused than ever.

When another boy from her past returns to her life, Lara Jean’s feelings for him return too. Can a girl be in love with two boys at once?

In this charming and heartfelt sequel to the New York Times bestseller To All the Boys I've Loved Before, we see first love through the eyes of the unforgettable Lara Jean. Love is never easy, but maybe that’s part of what makes it so amazing.

Interestingly, what made me love the first book in this duology by Jenny Han made me dislike the second, and what made me dislike the first book made me love the second too.

The dynamic between Peter and Lara Jean was what made the first book so great. They were unexpected. They were in completely different social groups. They didn't make sense together… until they did. And then they made all the sense in the world, and they represented possibility and breaking the status quo, being something other than what is expected. All you wanted was to see Lara Jean and Peter being silly together, and Peter treating Kitty like she was his own sister, and Peter acting like his smarmy self but regarding Lara Jean's Korean culture with so much respect.

And there was definitely still some of that charm in P.S. I Still Love You – like Kitty with her blunt observations:

"It looks like sex to me, but I'm the only one here besides you who's never had sex, so what do I know? Sorry, I read your diary."

And Lara Jean with her social awkwardness (doesn't this sound like a scene straight out of The Mindy Project? Like, "Ugh, Danny, why are you such a slow reader?" Anyone?):

"It's torturous standing there in front of him, waiting – for what, I don't know. More humiliation? I should probably just go. He's such a slow reader."

But the more I learned about Peter, the more easily I fell out of love with him, and I was frustrated with Lara Jean for not feeling the same way. He had moments where he would just sparkle, where he would say exactly the right thing, and you could tell it was for real and not just some line he was feeding her, and I could understand Lara Jean not wanting to let him go, but… I just… ugh. It didn't feel like enough to me. He acted in ways that canceled out what made him so great.

I need to do a whole separate post on this. I have a lot of feelings about Peter, and they are not good feelings.

Moving right along…

As he was meant to do, John Ambrose McClaren captured my heart with his gentlemanliness. It was unexpected and a tiny bit scary, too, to realize that falling in love is just a game of chance. It reminds me of something I learned in a human development class I took in college – there are currently 7+ billion people on this world, and literally millions of those people could be your potential [soul]mate, but if you don't encounter them, then it doesn't matter. And it comes down to timing, and circumstance, and even if you do find them, and even if you manage to fall in love with them, you still have to make an effort to make it work.

I wasn't expecting such a blunt, realistic view of the world from this book, especially since the first book felt so much younger and more innocent to me. It didn't feel out of place, necessarily – rather, I think it showed Lara Jean growing up, confronting the hurtful moments in her life and trying to make sense of them:

"Things feel like they'll be forever, but they aren't. Love can go away, or people can, without even meaning to. Nothing is guaranteed."

P.S. I Still Love You was a little darker, not quite as dreamy or rosy as To All the Boys I Loved Before – and I really liked that about it. But I didn't love Peter, and it was a huge letdown, and I guess that's a big part of why I couldn't love this book.

On a lighter note, did anyone else notice that Lara Jean made Taylor Swift's chai sugar cookies with [cinnamon] eggnog frosting? (And since I'm on the subject, did anyone else feel like P.S. I Still Love You was basically "That's the Way I Loved You" in book form? Please discuss.)

Review: To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

Title: To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Author: Jenny Han
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: April 15, 2014
Rating: ★★★½

Summary (via Goodreads):

Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren't love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she's written. One for every boy she's ever loved – five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says 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 is not the kind of book I want to be caught reading on the subway. The entire cover reeks of starry-eyed girl mooning over, well, all the boys she's loved before. And yet... fanciful cover or not, after skimming the summary, I knew immediately that this was the kind of book that would resonate with me.

Let's face it. I'm exactly the kind of girl who falls in love with strangers, who invents a lifetime of stories about a person without even having to see their face, who may or may not have filled pages in my journal about what-ifs and could've-beens and where-are-they-nows. So when this book came into my library, I was beyond excited to read it.

"What is it with girls and rain?" Peter wonders.

"I don't know... I guess maybe because everything feels more dramatic in the rain," I say with a shrug.

"Did anything actually happen with you two, or were you just standing out in the rain picking up soccer balls?”

We may as well get this out of the way: To All the Boys is by no means a particularly refined book. The writing can be distracting at times. Most notably, our main character Lara Jean Song reads like a 13-year-old, even though she's a junior in high school. And I'll admit, the writing occasionally gave me some major Babysitters Club vibes. (Generally speaking, that isn't a problem for me because I'm quite a big fan of the BSC, but I imagine it's a turn-off for many other readers.)

I will note, however, that when I was 16-going-on-17, I probably sounded and acted the same as Lara Jean. It's a side-effect of living in a comfortable place – read: the suburbs – and having others around to take care of you. Lara Jean is mothered by Margot, to the point where she can't feel confident in her own decisions without some external validation. She exists in la la land where life, for the most part, is roses and daisies and daffodils. In a lot of ways, that's how I was in high school: sheltered, young, and naive. So yes, Lara Jean may have sounded like a child, but it's not unrealistic, nor is it necessarily an inaccurate portrayal of a 16-year-old girl.

Despite the writing level,  I really enjoyed this book precisely because of the characters. It is uncanny how much I identified with Margot, Lara Jean, and Kitty each. In very specific ways, too. It felt as if I could combine all of their weird quirks to form a rough picture of myself.

Also – I'm just going to be blunt here – it's nice to read a main character who is funny and silly and intelligent and sure-footed (in some parts of her life, at least) and normal and not white. I mean, how refreshing is it to see an actual Asian girl on a book cover?! I loved all the bits and pieces of culture that were embedded into this book. I constantly found myself laughing along and nodding.

Lara Jean has such a rich relationship with her family. I continue to believe family dynamics are fascinating, and while the Song family isn't particularly complex, they are still a joy to explore. I particularly adored the development of Lara Jean's relationship with Kitty – the initial clashing and then the closeness that formed as a result of Margot going off to college. The character growth in To All the Boys was an understated kind. Incremental, slow. It was made apparent only when Margot returned for Christmas break and "suddenly" Lara Jean had her own opinions, thoughts, desires. Sure, maybe it felt like nothing was happening, but isn't that how life is sometimes? You change and grow; your hair gets a fraction longer; days pass, and then weeks, and before you know it, you're different, not quite who you once were.

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.

Sadly, the ending of To All the Boys was a bit of a disappointment. It felt abrupt, to say the least. The resolution between Margot and Lara Jean seemed overly convenient. There was practically no mention of Josh, which is odd, given that a big chunk of this book was indirectly about him. Genevieve disappeared, which I thought unfair, and Lara Jean's relationship with Peter was left hanging.

According to Jenny Han, there WILL be one more book, which I hope will provide some much needed resolution. I still wish this could have been a tighter story – I'm a big fan of standalone novels; who's got all that shelf space anyway? – but I'll be generous here. This book has many flaws, absolutely. But it has many redeeming elements as well.

Margot would say she belongs to herself. Kitty would say she belongs to no one. And I guess I would say I belong to my sisters and my dad, but that won't always be true. To belong to someone – I didn't know it, but now that I think about it, it seems like that's all I've ever wanted. To really be somebody's, and to have them be mine.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before is ultimately a story filled with truths. It's a candid exploration of love and relationships. Lara Jean wonders if there's a difference between belonging to and belonging with someone – and maybe the words do matter, and maybe it's just semantics. Either way, it's a curious thing to think about. Equally interesting is the way we come to love people... the way distance can shape a relationship... the way time can corrode it.

If there's one thing that this book has reinforced for me, it's that relationships are both fragile and strong. They are malleable, never fixed. One day, a person may not remember you exist. The next, you run into them at a Model UN conference and they can't stop thinking about you for weeks. That's the allure of this book. It's a study in possibilities, and sometimes the possibilities seem endless.

On Diversity: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Last week, I finished reading Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved Before and I'm working on a review for it, but first can we just celebrate this rare sighting of the Asian-American protagonist?! HOORAY! Balloons! Noise! Confetti everywhere! In recognition, I'm sharing some of my favorite quintessentially Asian-American moments from the book.

1. Asian Grandma Realness

He loves Korean food. When my grandma comes to visit, he won't leave her side. He'll even watch Korean dramas with her. She cuts him pieces of apple and peels clementines for him like he's a baby. My grandma likes boys better than girls.

2. The No-Shoes Rule

"Is this for the PTA bake sale?" Peter brushes past me and starts taking off his sneakers. "You guys are a no-shoes house, right?"

3. Probiotic Yogurt Drinks

Without turning around, he lifts his hand up for a high five and Kitty leans forward and slaps it heartily. "Hey, gimme a sip of whatever it is you're drinking back there."

"It's almost gone, so you can have the rest," she says.

Kitty hands it over, and Peter tips back the plastic container in his mouth. "This is good," he says.

"It's from the Korean grocery store," Kitty tells him. "They come in a pack and you can put them in the freezer and if you pack it for lunch, it'll be icy and cold when you drink it."

"Sounds good to me. Lara Jean, bring me one of those tomorrow morning, will you? For services rendered."

4. Halloween. #thestruggle #unfair

"What do you want me to do? Do you want me to pop over to the Halloween store during lunch and buy a red wig and be Mary Jane?"

Smoothly Peter says, "Could you? That'd be great."

"No, I could not. You know why? Because I'm Asian, and people will just think I'm in a manga costume."

5. Korean Stationery Life

Instead I sit down and write Margot a letter on stationery my grandma bought me in Korea. It's pale blue with a border of fluffy white lambs.

Based on personal experience, I've found that one of the challenges of being Asian-American is that you're in an in-between state: Asian, but Americanized. At times it's hard to balance what your family wants and what your peers expect... which is partly why I like this book so much. Lara Jean doesn't tiptoe around her background. And she isn't "weird" for having a no-shoes house, or for eating pungent food, or for having fluffy white lambs on her stationery. She just is. And she's surrounded by people who appreciate where she comes from.

I love all of this culture embedded into the book.

I love this idea of being proud – even if that pride is subtle – of your background.

For those of you who have read To All the Boys, what was your reading experience like? Did you like or even care about Lara Jean's culture? Did you learn anything new, or was it all old news? Discuss! Inquiring minds want to know!