Overview
P.S. I Still Love You is a young adult novel by Jenny Han, published by Scholastic in 2015. It is a sequel to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, published in 2014.
The two books share the same main character and narrator, Lara Jean Song Covey, a Korean-American teenaged girl. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before concerns Lara Jean’s habit of writing secret love letters to boys she’s had crushes on, and P.S. I Still Love You deals with some of the consequences of these letters, which Lara Jean’s mischievous younger sister, Kitty, has discovered and distributed to the boys in question. The book opens with a letter that Lara Jean—now a junior in high school—has written to Peter Kavinsky, a popular boy in her class. The letter concerns a class ski trip that the two of them took together, during which they shared a kiss in a hot tub; it also concerns an argument that Peter apparently had with Josh, Lara Jean’s sister Margot’s ex-boyfriend. These are both events from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.
Plot Summary
In the first chapter of the book, we learn that Lara Jean is carrying this letter in her pocket during a New Year’s Day celebration with her extended family: her older sister Margot—who is on vacation from college in Scotland—her younger sister Kitty, her widowed father and her grandmother. The celebration is at the house of her Aunt Carrie and Uncle Victor, who have one teenaged daughter—Haven, a girl Lara Jean’s age—and two younger twin sons. During the celebration, Lara Jean is preoccupied with the question of whether or not to deliver the letter to Peter herself. She decides to do so after Haven discovers photographs of the two of them on her Instagram account, and comments on Peter’s handsomeness. Haven also expresses surprise that a popular boy like Peter would be interested in a girl like Lara Jean, and states that she thought that Peter was still dating “that pretty blond girl” (9): Genevieve, a former friend of Lara Jean’s.
Lara Jean asks her father to drop her off at Peter’s house on their way home from the celebration. Her father does so, and Lara Jean rings Peter’s doorbell. When Peter answers the door, she is nonplussed by his standoffish demeanor, and she decides not to give him the letter after all. She instead tells him that she stopped by simply to wish him a happy New Year and to say that she hopes that they can still be friends. When she turns to leave, Peter spies her letter sticking out of her pocket; he wrestles her for it, and ends up reading the letter in front of her. He tells Lara Jean that he feels the same way she does, and the two of them end up kissing on Peter’s doorstep.
Their new life as an official couple is anxious and uncertain from the beginning. Lara Jean is insecure about Peter’s greater popularity and sexual experience and about the ongoing presence of Genevieve in his life. Genevieve herself is jealous of Lara Jean and does everything that she can to sabotage their relationship, including posting a video of Lara Jean and Peter kissing in the hot tub on an anonymous Instagram account. She also sends Peter constant texts, which Peter refuses to explain or justify to Lara Jean, saying only that Genevieve is going through a difficult time with her family. Lara Jean and Peter are also temperamentally different in a way that fuels their attraction but leads to frequent feuds and misunderstandings.
When a boy named John Ambrose McLaren reappears in Lara Jean’s life, Lara Jean’s and Peter’s relationship is further tested. John was another recipient of one of Lara Jean’s love letters and was also part of Lara Jean’s and Peter’s group of friends before he moved away to another school. A group reunion leads to a game of “Assassin,” which they all used to play as middle schoolers. Lara Jean has never won this game before and is determined to win it this time, fueled by her competitiveness with Genevieve, her anger with Peter, and her burgeoning feelings for John. She does win the game, but also makes some uncomfortable discoveries along the way, both about herself and others around her. She finds out that Genevieve’s manipulative behavior has its roots in an absent, selfish father, who is currently carrying on an affair with a girl Genevieve’s age. She also realizes that, as much as she likes John, she is more drawn to Peter as a boyfriend. The book ends with Lara Jean and Peter reuniting in the treehouse where their group of friends used to gather, committing to being a couple but also acknowledging that they don’t know what the future holds.
