Audiobook Review: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
Publisher: Recorded Books
Narrator: Ali Ahn
Release Date: January 14, 2020
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them…all at once?
Sixteen-year-old 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.
When sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song has a crush on a boy, she writes him a love letter. She never sends them – she tucks them away in a hatbox her mother gave her. Her mother passed away a few years ago and now her older sister Margo is going off to college out of the country, leaving Lara Jean in charge of helping her dad with her younger sister Kitty.
One day at school, when Peter Kavinsky, the hottest boy in the junior class, tells her he received a letter from her, she realizes that all of her letters have been sent! Including the one to her sister’s boyfriend Josh. When Josh confronts her about her letter, she tells Josh that Peter is her boyfriend and she’s over him. Luckily, Peter wants to make his ex-girlfriend Genevieve jealous. Lara Jean and Peter decide they can each get what they want if they pretend to be boyfriend/girlfriend.
I watched the Netflix movie based on To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before a few years ago and thought it was cute. For some reason, it popped into my head last week and I decided to listen to the audiobook. Since it’s been so long since I watched the movie, I can’t really make any comparisons between the two other than to say that I enjoyed the book as much as the movie. I liked that the high school kids had the same maturity as real high school kids. I have two high-schoolers right now so I’m familiar! Lara Jean is sweet and naive, as some kids are, without being cloying. I loved her character. Her sister Margo could be an overbearing pill but aren’t all older sisters? (I’m an oldest child so I can say that!)
The only part that’s not entirely believable is that someone could send all those letters out. How did they know all the boys’ addresses? Unless Lara Jean addressed them even though she wasn’t going to send them? Anyway, just let that part go and enjoy the story. There are two more books in the series and I plan to listen to both. Yes, this is a young-adult book, but I think it appeals to all ages.
