reader's advisory: to all the boys i've loved before

in which i overshare about my teenage feels

hey guys! i’m trying something different and posting a book review! i wanna start doing this regularly; let me know what you think💖

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one of my favorite parts of my job as a public librarian was doing reader’s advisory: helping patrons find books, making recommendations, and helping them pick books based on what they’ve already read. i spent a lot of time doing it for teen and YA library kids because i also spent time doing purchasing for the YA collection at my first branch. by osmosis i started adding a lot more books in that age/marketing bracket to my TBR. it’s one of the things i miss the most, if i’m honest. anyway, that was the inspiration for this post. i read a few dozen books a year (i’ve been keeping track since 2020), so i hope to do this pretty frequently.

my most recently finished book is to all the boys i’ve loved before by jenny han. confession: i watched the movie when it came out on netflix, which was a few years ago already. i try not to do that if a book was adapted into a movie or tv show, and most of the time i don’t. i think i’ve already mentioned my history with YA books; this one was published in 2014, and at that time i was smack in the middle of undergrad and didn’t read too too much outside of stuff that was required for school (thanks to having a minor that fell under the english department, i had more than enough books to read every semester).

with hindsight, and even when i watched the movie, i wish i hadn’t waited so long. as it turns out, i don’t feel totally beyond all books that are geared towards young adults. drag me, whatever: there are some i can’t stand and some instances where i can’t bring myself to care about teenage characters anymore, but i don’t make such a broad generalization to believe that every person over the age of say, 21 who still reads YA is some kind of weirdo creep. there has to be some level of nuance here.

ANYWAY, let me get off this tangent. to all the boys is cute without being cloying. i found myself relating to lara jean… pretty much the entire time, i can’t even say at certain parts. my heart goes out to all the other girlies who crush too hard and get too into their feelings. the ones who are too awkward and nervous to talk to their crushes (or were in the past). the ones who have done embarrassing things in front of their peers more times than they can count. the ones who’ve been laughed at. the ones who’ve thought they’d never be anyone’s first choice. the ones whose friend groups fell apart and disintegrated. the ones who didn’t have very many friends to begin with. i know how they feel because i am them, at least on the inside despite how much i’ve grown since i was in high school. that’s the shit that gets me.

as a 30 year old adult there’s a part of me that wishes i still had the journals i kept sporadically from 2006 to around 2011 (7th to 11th grade). most of it was about day to day teenager stuff — angry rants after fighting with my parents, sad and confused ones when i was lonely — which included my crushes at the time. i really only had two huge ones in middle and high school. i was down bad both times, but being the awkward and terrified tween i was absolutely nothing ever came of either. what i wrote about them was extremely lara jean coded. i can admit with my full chest that i’m a thoughtful girlie, i romanticize everything, even as an adult.

another confession: while reading i was picturing the cast of the movie in my head. i know that’s basically considered a sin, but i couldn’t help it. lana condor is too adorable in lara jean’s banger clothes; to be honest i wish i could dress like that. i could talk about how much i think casting john corbett as dr. covey was a slay for like, several paragraphs, but i’m going to leave that tangent alone besides to say that i am team aidan forever and still low key love him (see my carrie bradshaw post for a longer explanation). book peter did not give me noah centineo vibes like, at all. the dummy sweet himbo energy was there, but every time lara jean described him as beautiful and The Most Handsome of Handsome Boys i was seeing something pretty different. i don’t quite know how to describe it, other than to say it wasn’t gen z rom com male love interest. maybe i am too old.

i wanna point out what i think the book did better than the movie, and that’s the relationship between lara jean and her sisters. like, the way lara jean’s point of view was written made it so clear to see how much they care about each other. the obvious nuance that siblings have was there; it ebbs and flows, just like any other relationship. i might be a little biased because as soon as she was described as dreamy-eyed i was like ah, makes sense why i like this now. i’m the oldest sibling, but my sister is more like margot (type a, slightly overbearing) than lara jean. i was surprised by how much it got me in my feelings. i think if i’d read it as an actual high schooler, i might not have liked it as much.

(p.s. i would have LOVED if the youngest sister kitty got her own book(s) before the netflix series. also, jenny han if you’re reading this (lol) have you thought about writing something for adults with similar vibes? just wondering.)