To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Jenny Han, 2014
Romance Young adultContemporary fiction
A girl writes secret letters to every boy she's loved—then they get mailed. A warm, funny novel about sisters, first love, and the mess of being seen. A warm, witty teenage voice carries you through family tenderness, embarrassment, and the small thrills of first love.
Feels like tenderness and wonder. About society, family and identity.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy warm contemporary YA about sisters, crushes, and the awkwardness of being seen. The high-school setting and letter mix-up carry much of the plot, so the stakes may feel small if teenage romance isn't your thing.
Why read it
It gives you a funny, tender story about family loyalty and the mess of being known, with a heroine whose embarrassment and courage feel familiar.
A page from the book
The sister who decides things cleanly, and the one who can’t.
I wave a spoonful of cookie dough under Margot’s nose, and she hesitates and then opens her mouth. I feed it to her like a baby. “Wait and see, you and Josh will be back together in a day, maybe two.” But even as I’m saying it, I know it’s not true. Margot’s not the kind of girl to break up and get back together on a whim; once she’s decided something, that’s it. There’s no waffling, no regrets. It’s like she said: when she’s done, she’s just done. Jenny Han.Jenny Han was born in Richmond, Virginia, to Korean parents and worked as a children’s book editor before becoming a novelist.
Books that feel like this
More by Jenny Han
It's Not Summer Without You
Jenny Han, 2010
A grief-stricken summer, two brothers, and a girl who can’t let go of the house that made her.
We'll Always Have Summer
Jenny Han, 2011
The last summer before adulthood, when first love stops being a season and starts asking for a life.
The Summer I Turned Pretty
Jenny Han, 2009
A girl returns to the beach house where she grew up and finds the boys she's known forever looking at her differently.
Where to get it
Some of these links earn us a small commission, at no cost to you. It keeps BookFeed free.
Questions readers ask
- Is To All the Boys I've Loved Before for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy warm contemporary YA about sisters, crushes, and the awkwardness of being seen. The high-school setting and letter mix-up carry much of the plot, so the stakes may feel small if teenage romance isn't your thing.
- What is To All the Boys I've Loved Before like?
- A warm, witty teenage voice carries you through family tenderness, embarrassment, and the small thrills of first love. Feels like tenderness and wonder. About society, family and identity.
- What should I read after To All the Boys I've Loved Before?
- If you liked To All the Boys I've Loved Before, try Wonder (R.J. Palacio), Blue Sisters (Coco Mellors) and Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell).
A taste of the feed
The wish is not to be beautiful, only to be unnoticed.
If I found a magic lamp and I could have one wish, I would wish that I had a normal face that no one ever noticed at all. I would wish that I could walk down the street without people seeing me and then doing that look-away thing. Here’s what I think: the only reason I’m not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.
Wonder · R.J. Palacio
Why calling a close friend a sister can feel like a small betrayal.
A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used again and again to connote the highest intimacy. True sisterhood is not the same as friendship. You don’t choose each other and there is no furtive period of getting to know each other. You are a part of each other, right from the start. Look at an umbilical cord—tough, sinuous, unlovely, yet essential—and compare it to a friendship bracelet of brightly woven thread. That is the difference between a sister and a friend.
Blue Sisters · Coco Mellors
How much of yourself you edit before pressing send.
Cath probably should have texted Abel by now, just to tell him that she’d made it—but she wanted to wait until she felt more breezy and nonchalant. You can’t take back texts. If you come off all moody and melancholy in a text, it just sits there in your phone, reminding you of what a drag you are.
Fangirl · Rainbow Rowell
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
Keep reading in the feed