Review: P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #2) by Jenny Han

 

Synopsis from Good Reads:

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?

I’ve been looking forward to this book for so long and unfortunately I found it very disappointing!

I haven’t re-read the first book since the first time I read it so I may be remembering wrong, but I thought it was a very cute book and I found Lara Jean’s naiveté kind of charming. That’s not to say I didn’t have some issues with the book, but over all I thought it was adorable.

I feel like P.S. I Still Love You suffered from trying to be too much, without every really defining itself. It acted like a “cause” book for awhile, calling attention to slut shaming and the double standard between males and females when it comes to sex. It had a bit of a love triangle/love square (but not with the person you would expect) and it didn’t take up the majority of the book like I thought it would (not that that’s really a bad thing, though). There were a lot of scenes and dialogue where it almost seemed more like a middle grade or very young end of the YA spectrum book, but then there were other scenes and language that seemed more appropriate for the more mature YA crowd. It made so many parts of the book just seem so awkward. It was kind of the book equivalent of a little girl playing dress up and instead of playing house, plays Sex in the City. They tried very hard to sound grown up, but instead just come across cringe-worthy.

The flow was kind of choppy, as well. There would be really random scenes of Lara Jean and her sisters or Lara Jean and her friends at the nursing home that just didn’t really seem to add anything at all to the story.

The book wasn’t all bad, though. There were still some cute scenes between Lara Jean and Peter, though not as many I would have liked. Her relationship with her sisters is solid again, which is nice to see. The lack of Josh is kind of surprising, but I liked the addition of John.

Overall, I found P.S. I Still Love You to be very underwhelming. It was not at all the book I was expecting it to be. I feel like it could have been much more focused. Perhaps the story was trying to combat the critics of the first book who thought Lara Jean was way too naïve, but unfortunately her “growth” in this book just made for an awkward read. However, fans of Han will probably still enjoy it and if you’ve read the first one, you might enjoy this one, too.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 2. Stars