Audiobook Review: Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han

Title: Always and Forever, Lara Jean Series: To All the Boys I Loved Before #3 Written by: Jenny Han Published: May 2, 2017 by Simon Books for Young Readers (Simon and Schuster) (Amazon / Goodreads / Audible) Synopsis: Lara Jean’s letter-writing days aren’t over in this surprise follow-up to the New York Times bestselling To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You.  Lara Jean is having the best senior year a girl could ever hope for. She is head over heels in love with her boyfriend, Peter; her dad’s finally getting remarried to their next door neighbor, Ms. Rothschild; and Margot’s coming home for the summer just in time for the wedding.  But change is looming on the horizon. And while Lara Jean is having fun and keeping busy helping plan her father’s wedding, she can’t ignore the big life decisions she has to make. Most pressingly, where she wants to go to college and what that means for her relationship with Peter. She watched her sister Margot go through these growing pains. Now Lara Jean’s the one who’ll be graduating high school and leaving for college and leaving her family—and possibly the boy she loves—behind.  When your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

I love this book so much! I really loved this series. I was late to the party but I am so glad I took the time to read it. It's a fantastic contemporary and this was a great ending to the series.

First things first, this was just a really great contemporary. I like my YA contemps to have a good balance between serious and light-hearted. That is exactly what this book was. I think it was probably on the more serious side being that it was the last book and about Lara Jean leaving for college but it still it had it fun moments. It was sweet and funny and complex. It was everything I wanted it to be. I loved the way it unfolded and when it was over I loved it so much but I also didn't want it to end.

I think the thing that I liked most about this book is the character development. So much of this series was about Lara Jean and her development so of course this book was about that. This was the conclusion of Lara Jean's story and a fabulous conclusion it was. Lara Jean is a really great character who feels seventeen. Sometimes she's immature and silly but at other times somehow is wise beyond her years. In this book we got to see her figure out what she wanted with the rest of her life and she finally started it honking about herself in a mature way. I really loved that. This series was a great coming of age story for Lara Jean.

But this book was also about relationships. First we had the romance between Lara Jean and Peter K. I absolutely ship it. I've definitely been a fan of this relationship from the beginning and I am still a fan. Peter is adorable, Lara Jean is adorable, and they work together so well. The thing I love even more though is that their relationship is not perfect. So many times with YA romances all we see is first love or the honeymoon phase. But that is not the case here. These two fight, they break up, and they makeup. It feels like a genuine and realistic relationship in that way. Plus I really loved the way it ended. It was so perfect.

But that wasn't the only great relationship in this book. This is also a book about Lara Jean and her family. The Coveys are such a great family and they care so much about each other. For one thing. totally love Lara Jean's dad. It's kind of sad but it's a little refreshing to see an involved parent who cares about their children. He also had some fun stuff with his relationship and second marriage. But the heart of this book is the relationship between the Song girls. Lara Jean's sister are amazing and they are so close it's adorable. My favorite of course is Kitty who is a total brat in the best possible way.

On the whole I really loved this book. It was the perfect ending to this series. It was a great coming of age story with wonderful characters and an amazing romance. It was the perfect ending to Lara Jean's story.

I give Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han 9.5 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Buy. You absolutely need to read this book if you love this series. But if you haven't and you like YA contemporaries this one is so worth a read. Even if you aren't a fan of the genre this one is still totally worth it. It's sweet, it's funny, it's cute. I loved it and you will too.

Have you read Always and Forever, Lara Jean? What did you think? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

Book Review: P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Title: P.S I Still Love You Series: To All the Boys I've Loved Before #2 Written by: Jenny Han Published: May 26, 2015 by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: Lara Jean didn’t expect to really fall for Peter. She and Peter were just pretending. Except suddenly they weren’t. Now Lara Jean is more confused than ever. When another boy from her past returns to her life, Lara Jean’s feelings for him return too. Can a girl be in love with two boys at once?  In this charming and heartfelt sequel to the New York Times bestseller To All the Boys I've Loved Before, we see first love through the eyes of the unforgettable Lara Jean. Love is never easy, but maybe that’s part of what makes it so amazing.

I enjoyed To All the Boys I Loved Before much more than I expected and with the unresolved feeling I felt after the ending of that book I knew I had to read this book. And it was just as cute a book.

I definitely love the characters in this series. In the first book I related so hard to Lara Jean. I saw myself in her and I was excited to see what would happen to her next. And so much of this book is about Lara Jean and her insecurities. In some respects she has grown up a lot since the last book but in other ways she is just as naive and immature. I love that about a teen protagonist though. She felt so real and when things for hard for her I could empathize and wanted her to get out of whatever situation she was in. And while she was maybe a little less relatable she was still really likable and I enjoyed seeing her develop.

I also really liked seeing the relationships develop, especially the romantic ones. I wasn't sure exactly how much I liked Peter until this book and then I was totally shipping it. The best part of the romance however is that it's not perfect, in fact it's far from it. It's messy and bad at times. I always think about the first loves you see in YA and wonder what will happen to them down the road. A lot of this book explored some of those ideas. Lara Jean and Peter's relationships was messy and it had it's ups and down but what relationships don't. It was just one more thing about this book that was realistic which made it so enjoyable.

I did however miss some of the other relationships in this book. So much of the first book was about the bond Lara Jean had with her sisters and her dad which wasn't really developed here. I missed that. And there were some exploration of the friendships in the book including some previous friendships which had not lasted. It was an interesting idea but I don't think it got as much attention as I would have liked. I just wish there was more friendship or other relationships instead the focus on the romance, even though I liked the romance.

But once again Jenny Han is able to write a contemporary that brilliantly balances the lighthearted and the serious. There are some really sweet moments here but there are also some really funny ones and some sad ones even. I think I went through the entire spectrum of emotions throughout this book and that is the mark of a good book to me. I prefect contemporaries that have some heavy moments but doesn't take itself to serious because that's how life is and that's what makes me enjoy and connect with a book. This book definitely did that and it's one of the things I liked about it and the series on the whole.

I know there is a third book coming out soon (which I am really excited to read) but that this was originally planned to be a duology. I appreciated that this book left things open while still wrapping up the storyline. I felt like the first book was so abrupt and this one felt complete.

P.S. I Still Love You is a good sequel to a cute and relatable YA contemporary. It's got likable characters and an interesting storyline. I enjoyed it just as much as the first book, maybe even a little bit more.

I give P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han 9 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow Bypass: Buy. If you read the first book and enjoyed it, you definitely have to get your hands on the sequel. I think this is a cute and interesting contemporary fans of the genre or those new to it will enjoy.

Have you read P.S. I Still Love You? What did you think? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

Book Review: To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

Title: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series: To All the Boys I've Loved Before #1 Written by: Jenny Han Published: April 15, 2014 by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers (Amazon / Goodreads) Synopsis: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

After being in a boom slump that lasted for months and finally clawing my way out of it, I decided this month I needed a bit of a change of pace. I needed to read something completely different for me. I wanted to read something light and fun. A fast but engaging read. So looking through my kindle I spotted this book and noticed the audiobook was cheap so I grabbed it for a road trip. And it was exactly what I wanted.

To All the Boys I Loved Before is definitely a light and fun contemporary read. I am not a huge fan of contemporaries but I have heard great things about Jenny Han and this book in particular so I gave it a try and I am glad I did because I actually really enjoyed it. It's one of those contemporaries that does a really good job of balancing funny and light moments with serious moments. There were a lot of surprisingly complex moments in this book and I liked them just as much as I liked the fun and silly ones. It made the book feel realistic and engaging in a more realistic way.

But I think the thing that I was most surprised by this book is the romance. This is not a book that is heavy on the romance. You would think that the story of a girl who writes love letters to the boys she loved would have a ton of romance in it but it definitely doesn't. Now don't get me wrong, it's does have romance. But the romance is subtle and is actually a pretty good slowburn. I don't want to say too much because part of the fun with this and honestly why it is so charming is because you don't really know how it is going to go. I think Jenny does a great job showcasing the uncertainty and affection that a teenage girl feels for her first love.

However the romance isn't the only great relationship here. Sometimes I think authors can do a really good job with one relationship and then neglect the others but that didn't happen here at all. On top of the romance there was an interesting parental relationship, some great female friendships, and a really fantastic sisterly bond. Much of the more poignant moments in the book come at the hand of those three relationships and have nothing to do with the romance which I really liked.

And I think one of the main reasons that the relationships worked so well  is that this book had really good characterizations. The characters were interesting, complex, and realistic. Things that very easily could have been cliche tropes like the cute boy next door, the bad girl, the queen bee, and the attractive jock. But they weren't. All the characters had some depth to them and it made them all the more likable. But the character with the most depth was of course Lara Jean. She had to carry this book and she did. She did it brilliantly. I connected with Lara Jean right away because I could totally relate to her. I was so much like her in high school. She's a dreamer and a homebody who likes to bake and is scared of driving. Which is honestly still a little bit me. I loved reading Lara Jean's story because I felt like I was imagining myself in her shoes and that is the mark of good characterization. Which is exactly what this book had.

My main criticism however is with the plot development and maybe even the pacing of this story. It moved along steadily and was working towards something, or so I thought. But then the book just ended. It didn't feel like a complete story. Now I know this is the first book in a trilogy and I think when it was first written is was planned to be a duology, but still. Even if you are continuing the series each book should have a clear ending. And this didn't have a cliffhanger or anything, it just ended. I kept thinking that it can't be done because that was just so abrupt.

On the whole To All the Boys I Loved Before is a good contemporary read. It has a great balance of light and serious moments, great relationships, and complex and relatable characters. It was exactly what I wanted in a palate cleanser and I am interested in finishing the series to find out how it all ends.

I give To All the Boys I Loved Before by Jenny Han 8.5 out of 10 stars

Buy/Borrow/Bypass: Buy. If you are late to this party like me I definitely recommend checking this book out. Whether you are a big fan of YA contemporary romances or not I think this is worth the read. It was fast and fun and I really enjoyed it.

Have you read To All the Boys I Loved Before? What did you think? Leave me a comment with your thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!