I was hedging on whether I would read this book or not, but I’ve been seeing violent reactions reviews on my feed and curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to bump it up my TBR this weekend.
“P.S. I Still Love You” is the sequel to Jenny Han’s “To All the Boys I Loved Before,” which I thought was pretty charming. In this sequel, Lara Jean has a boyfriend (DON’T read after the cut if you don’t want spoilers!), and she finds out being in a relationship is not as simple as she thought it would be.
Here’s what’s really going on in Lara Jean’s life: a video of her making out with Peter in a hot tub on the school trip is making the rounds of social media; Peter’s continued friendship with ex-girlfriend (and Lara Jean’s childhood BFF) Gen is driving a wedge in their relationship; and a boy (I won’t say who) from Lara Jean’s past resurfaces.
While I found Lara Jean’s naivete charming in the first book, I think it works against her in this one. I just found it frustrating that for a supposedly intelligent girl, she kept making one bad choice after another. I wanted some empowerment for her character; I thought it was just a little unrealistic for her to take so much cr*p from other people, and most of her problems could have been avoided if only she had stood up for herself.
I also thought the resolution was too hasty. I wanted a little more growth for Lara Jean, and for a little more introspection go into her decision, but things just slotted a little too neatly in the end, and I felt she was copping out. Admittedly I was rooting for the other ship (insert hearts here!), but I thought he at least deserved the chance to have been a viable option for Lara Jean to have taken as opposed to the stopgap he was.
That said, what saved this book was the support cast. Lara Jean has always had a solid support system in her family and friends, which is why I feel her character should have been able to deal better. Lara Jean’s sister Kitty is a delight and deserves a spin-off book of her own, or maybe a third book in this series, where hopefully Lara Jean can grow some more, and give us JA-shippers something to look forward to.
***
P.S. I Still Love You, trade paperback, 3/5 stars
P395 at National Book Store.
Same thing happened to me. I decided to jump into the bandwagon and found myself a little disappointed but I agree with you when you said that Kitty deserves abook of her own.
Kitty forever! <3
Gah! I was afraid this would happen. Han did this with the finale of her Summer series too, ‘We’ll Always Have Summer’ – totally disappointing finish to a series. *sigh* I’ve just started reading ‘P.S.’ too!
Great, honest review :)
Oh, I remember now. I wished Belly had considered options outside of the two brothers.
I do hope a third book turns this series around!