Review: Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han

Challenges: 

Around the Year in 52 books: A book that is a continuation of a book you’ve already read

This book is the third and final installment of the “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” series and I was really torn about it. I liked the first book enough to give it 4 stars out of 5, while the second only got 3 stars. This last book was really seesawing between the stars for me, because while I adore the setting and ambience, I started to have a real problem with Lara Jean as a person. 

First let me say that I really enjoy Jenny Han’s writing and the whole setup of this series. This book made me super nostalgic for high school and I didn’t even go to an American high school, but all the traditions, the winding down of the school year, saying goodbye and people setting off on different paths in their lives…ugh! So nostalgic! 

As for Lara Jean she started to really bug me. Beware of slight spoilers below! She is dating Peter throughout this book and several times she just seemed to be such a bitch to him to a degree that I really started to question her goody-two-shoes persona. Like at one point she wants him to do some minor thing for her and when he says no she jokes around with a Harry Potter spell and he ends up doing it anyway, and then she thinks to herself something like “Is there anything better than bending a boy to your will?” and I was just like…..uuum?? I’m pretty sure this was all meant to be good fun and what not but it just felt really bitchy to me. Like she was moulding Peter into the type of man she wanted him to be instead of just letting him be himself. And later on she does his yearbook quote for him and she puts “You’re welcome”, and she explains it as Peter being like “I’m so fabulous to look at so here I am, you’re welcome”. Which I thought seemed really mean. And she spends a good chunk of the book talking about how vain he is and how he likes to dress up and such. But then she is pretty much obsessed with finding the perfect outfits for everything so how is she any different? And all throughout the book she just really seems to pick at Peter’s insecurities, especially when they are having a fight, but even so I just don’t think that that is how a relationship should be. Sure, you can get mad at one another, but that’s no reason to expose your partner’s deepest insecurities to a roomful of basically random people at a party. I don’t know, she just seemed really mean sometimes and I often wondered why Peter didn't say something or do something. 

In conclusion I liked this book, mostly for the nostalgia, but also for the moments when Lara Jean and Peter did have a cute relationship, although I was mostly rooting for Peter to be happy, with or without Lara Jean. I think this lands on a 2,5 stars for me.