P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #2)
By: Jenny Han
“I want to have it all, and to have it all, you have to risk it all.”
I read To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (Book 1) back in November. Finally getting around to the second book because we wanted to watch the second movie.
In short: It wasn’t as good as the first one. Didn’t hate it. Didn’t love it.
The brief synopsis:
This book takes off right where the last one left off.
The hot-tub rumor of Lara Jean and Peter becomes a viral video.
The first book is a Lara Jean/Peter/Josh love triangle. Josh is virtually non-existent in this book, but the love triangle won’t go away.
John Ambrose McClaren— another letterboy— finally receives Lara Jean’s letter and writes her back— suddenly making an appearance back in her life.
Now the triangle is Lara Jean/Peter/John.
What seemed so easy and right with Peter becomes complicated once they make things official. It still seems like Genevieve (his ex) is still number one for him. He still has feelings for her? Is there room for Lara Jean or will Genevieve keep haunting their relationship?
Then there’s John who has come into himself since before he moved away. He is confident in himself, thoughtful, romantic, and without the previous relationship baggage that Peter has.
“What would I regret losing more? The reality of Peter or the dream of John? Who can’t I live without?”
My Thoughts
I didn’t like this book as much as the first one. There was a common theme throughout the book of sex. Lara Jean is only 16 but she’s talking about it with Peter, John, Margot, Chris, an old lady at the retirement home and even her ten year old sister Kitty. Who’s doing it? What’s it like?
The old lady tells her: “A girl with a reputation is so much more interesting than a Goody-Two-Shoes.”
As a parent reading this book— don’t like that. If I had a teenage girl, I would not want her reading this book. Maybe I was too naive in high school, but sex should not be so primary for high schoolers. I wouldn’t want my daughter feeling pressure to ‘be like everybody else’ and have sex or pursue a ‘reputation’ as if she’s some sort of wild girl.
Since when is making good choices a bad thing? I was the goody-two-shoes in school. Sure it made high school hard, but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. In fact, I think my life is a lot better for it.
That is not how healthy relationships are built. That’s not what she should spend her time thinking and worrying about. High schoolers really don’t know much about love, boundaries, or consequences… why does the culture keep telling them to follow their hearts??
They need to tell their hearts to calm down and start using their brains a little more.
I know… it’s a romance novel. I suppose that’s why I don’t really read many of those. Especially if it’s high school romance. If it’s so focused on sex I’m not into it. I like to read about people falling in love and remembering what that feels like, but you don’t need sex for that.
Maybe reading Talking Back to Purity Culture is worth your time?
It also seemed to have more swearing and f-words than the first one. Maybe I just don’t remember that far back, but it seemed quite prevalent in this book.
Also, there is no reason for Peter to be what he’s being for Gen unless they are dating. And there is no way to continue that and expect to have a relationship with another girl. That’s just dating 101.
I wanted to like Peter but after this book I’m Team John.
One random thing I liked: She set up a scrapbooking class with the people at the retirement home and I think that’s awesome! Hopefully someone does that for me when I’m at that point in my life.
Margot also gives Lara Jean this advice:
“Things feel like they’ll be forever, but they aren’t. Love can go away, or people can, without meaning to. Nothing is guaranteed.”
I both agree and disagree. I think things in high school always feel like forever but they aren’t. I think things that feel important in high school really aren’t. Things that are stressed about, cried over, pined over, are such a small blip in the course of one’s life. But you don’t fully realize this until college and beyond.
As with pretty much all love stories, it’s all about the feelings. Whether they ‘feel’ in love or don’t ‘feel’ in love anymore. And it’s those things that create these stupid love triangles. Because of course girls want to feel loved and noticed so any book where the main character is fought over by more than one guy is like a dream come true.
But this perpetuation of feelings dictating actions is false love. Love is a choice. And a commitment. In that way love DOESN’T go away.
Granted, people in high school do not usually need to be making long term love commitments and I don’t necessarily wish Han had done that here.
And here I am again over-analyzing a YA romance novel.
Book/Movie Comparison
I watched the movie back in July and here are a few differences between the book and the movie:
My biggest disappointment was there was no assassin game in the movie. I think that would have 1) been entertaining, but 2) we lose the tension of Lara Jean feeling like Peter has teamed up with Gen for the game and wondering why he would be protecting her instead of working with Lara Jean.
The movie also brings John Ambrose into the picture by having him ‘sign up’ to work at the nursing home just like Lara Jean. Stormy isn’t his grandma in the movie. So there is no overnight in the nursing home because of the storm situation and therefore no snowball fight. I think that was a special bonding time for John and Lara Jean so I was also disappointed that was different.
Another prominent difference is that the ball they throw for the nursing home isn’t a throwback to war times— no victory roll hairstyle and costumes. It’s just a ‘star ball.’ Which is boring and not as sweet as Lara Jean’s idea.
The drama with the video kinda played out in the first movie so there wasn’t much about it in the second movie.
Gen talks about her parents getting divorced but the reason for it is not given in the movie.
Peter doesn’t miss his lacrosse game in the movie which I’m not sure why they did it that way. I feel like it was a pretty big deal in the book considering he had never missed a game and she had gone to all the trouble of dressing up for him only to find out he missed the game for Gen.
They didn’t include all of these things that compile to make Peter less likable. In the book I was team John but I think they still want you to be Team Peter based on the movie.
All that to say, the movie was still entertaining. There was less sex talk than the book which was good, and because it’s a movie, the investment isn’t as big as reading so expectations are curbed.
Conclusion
Though it’s not my favorite genre and just like the first book, there’s not a whole lot that really happens, I suppose I wasn’t bored or slogging through it. I read it quickly.
I didn’t care for the language or the frequency of ‘sex’ talk. Although, to be fair, Lara Jean does not want to have sex so it doesn’t actually happen in this book. I have feeling it might not be the case for the third book.
Depending how the movie goes, I will probably still read the third book before seeing the third movie.
I think it will just be hard for me to appreciate most YA romance novels. If you are already a fan of those, you’ll probably like this.
If you’re like me, maybe try reading Sing Me Forgotten. I thought that was a really good love story!
Brittany
XOXO
P.S. The author used the words ‘hedged’ and ‘interminably’ too much.
You may purchase a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
