Although I enjoyed the Burn for Burn series, it wasn’t what I would typically expect from Jenny Han. I first fell in love with her writing when I read Shug. I went on to adore the Summer I Turned Pretty series and frequently recommend it to readers who are looking for an author similar to Sarah Dessen. Even though Jenny Han’s stories fall on the lighter side of YA, I can’t help but use words like “honest” and “raw” when I describe her characters. I love the fact that Han’s characters face problems that a majority of tweens and teens can relate to — and the mom/librarian in me especially appreciates her multidimensional female characters.
Lara Jean has fallen in love many times, but that doesn’t exactly mean she has had much dating experience. Instead of dating those boys, though, she skipped straight from falling in love to letting them go. And, in order to let them go, she wrote a love letter of sorts. Whenever she wrote to one of the boys she loved, Lara Jean always wrote honestly and held nothing back (because she knew that the boys would never really read the letters). She’d planned to simply keep all of the letters in the hat box her mom gave her to hold her special and/or secret items. The fact that she chose to include the name and address of each boy on the front of the envelope, nevertheless, proved to be rather unfortunate. After the hat box mysteriously disappeared from her closet and the letters were all “accidentally” mailed out, Lara Jean ended up agreeing to be in a fake relationship to avoid her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh — to whom she had written one of the most recent letters . But how is a girl supposed to know whether her fake boyfriend is actually flirting or just putting on a good show? And what should she do if she starts to think she might have feelings for him? The book ended a little too abruptly for my liking, so it’s a good thing there is a sequel — P.S. I Still Love You — that came out at the end of May. 😉