#off the shelf

During the first week of July, I participated in a challenge on Twitter called #DrawThisInYourStyle. Drawing random character and draw them in your style. It’s a fun way to discover characters and interact with creators. Here’s the second batch of characters.

I am kicking past ShariAnn’s booty for not reading this when it came out! To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is hilarious (among many other things)! I was expecting a run of the mill YA Romance and it ended up being so much more than that! For example, TATBILB is also a story about the love between sisters. Since this book has been out for a hot minute, I’m not going to avoid any spoilers so if you haven’t read it yet, you’ve been warned.

TATBILB was a slow starter for me but I was determined to finish it because it’s becoming a Netflix movie on August 17th! However, once Lara Jean’s letters got released, I was hooked! I had a sneaking suspicion of who sent them, so I wasn’t shocked at the reveal but I loved the build up to it. I was a lot like Lara Jean in high school, down to the writing letters to my crushes, but thankfully mine never got sent out. I think my mom did find one in my pants pocket once, though, and simply the thought of that was mortifying for years. I was definitely sympathetic for Lara Jean. She’s much braver than I was though, going along with the fake relationship thing!

There were lots of things I loved about this book, so settle on in. The first, I already touched on, was that while there was a sweet romance in this book, it really felt like the most important love was the love between the Song Girls. It’s very clear that Lara Jean and her older sister, Margot, have an almost maternal type of love for their younger sister Kitty. Even when Kitty is being a typical annoying 9-year-old, Lara Jean and Margot manage to stay pretty level-headed while dealing with her. We also see how much Margot cares for Lara Jean, even while she’s abroad in Scotland, she’s checking in on Lara Jean to make sure she’s on track for college. Lara Jean demonstrates countless times how deep her love is for her sister, especially in her letter to (and interactions with) Josh. Even when Josh kisses Lara Jean, she feels like she’s betrayed Margot. We also see how deep their love is when Margot is fairly quick to forgive Lara Jean.

My second favorite aspect of TATBILB is how Jenny Han chose to write about sex. Sex in YA novels is still a hot button issue, and I feel like Han handled it really well. She isn’t trying to say that teens should or shouldn’t be having sex but demonstrates how it’s different for everybody. Lara Jean and her best friend Chris are seemingly opposites in their sex lives and neither judges the other for their choices. When the video of Lara Jean and Peter kissing in the hot tub is released, Han demonstrates the double standards young men and women are held to in regards to sex. Peter’s reputation is hardly at stake but Lara Jean is suddenly seen and treated differently and negatively by her peers and by adults in her life.

The final thing I’ll touch on is Peter and Lara Jean’s fake-then-real relationship. It seemed fairly obvious to me that Peter had feelings for Lara Jean right away but it’s hard for me to say if I would have noticed that at 16. Regardless, I liked that Lara Jean’s first boyfriend wasn’t terrible. He was respectful of her boundaries (and she his) and they had so much fun together! I’ve been on a dystopia kick, so it was refreshing to read a romance that didn’t blossom out of trying to save the world together. This romance was much more relatable and realistic to teenage romances.