The Year of Reading Young Adult: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Ahh... I'm so proud of myself. I've read six books this year. SIX. And it's only almost-November. You never know what bigger magic I can whip out in the next two months. Am I going to read another book before the year ends? Two books? *shudders* The way I'll be unstoppable...

So three of the books are from the To All the Boys I've Loved Before series by Jenny Han -- because I'm not crying over any book this year *squints at A Little Life*.

The series, which its book 1 is now a Netflix movie, is about Lara Jean, a half-Korean, half-White 16-year-old who has this habit of writing love letters to her crushes but never sending them -- sort of a way to say goodbye to these boys that she doesn't think she'll ever be with. A few years later, the letters get sent out without her knowledge, and that starts the chaos that eventually launches three bestsellers.

There were five recipients of the letters, and she heard back from four of them: The first one is her classmate Lucas, who turns out to be gay and whom she quickly becomes close friends with. The second one is her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh, who is also their neighbour and friend and is now confused with this new revelation. The third one is a childhood friend who has moved to another town, John, who is sooo charming, by the way, and whom she reconnects with probably in book 2, following the letter incident. And the fourth is Peter Kavinsky, another childhood friend, the school's cute, popular boy who is also her ex-best friend's boyfriend.

So, the spoiler is, the three books are basically the story of Lara Jean and Peter. Mostly. There are stories about family, friendships, preparing for college, dealing with life changes, growing up, and more too.

I read a couple of negative reviews of the books, and some of them kind of surprised me a little. Not that these books should not have any negative reviews, but they centre around how "These kids sound immature and annoying, and they are privileged and childish etc". I mean, the story is about kids in high school... Or maybe I have a different tolerance level; I endured Bella in Twilight for four books! (Do not -- I repeat -- DO NOT state any other, hurtful reasons to me.)

So, if you ask me if I would recommend reading the series: maybe don't read it if you're rarely into young adult, anyway. Because this is soooo young-adult. You might see their actions as cute one minute, then flip on the next and think they are annoying -- in which case, why would anyone torture themselves reading three annoying books? But I love the books. And these young adults are kind and brave. Except for the part where there is too much cooking done, especially by a 16-year-old, this is an easy and happy read.

Image: the movie's still, Netflix