In the past couple months, Lara Jean has gone from being a girl with a fake boyfriend to one with a real relationship that is at the centre of her high school’s latest gossip scandal. Probably the most romantic moment of her life so far was recorded by a jealous bystander (her boyfriend’s ex) and paraded around as supposed proof of Lara Jean’s ‘easiness’. When said boyfriend protects the ex rather than Lara Jean, it starts to look like their relationship can’t withstand the strain of reality.
P.S. I Still Love You, by Jenny Han, is the sort of book that’s kind of embarrassing to read on the train as an adult. But I did it anyway.
The experience of reading both To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You has been one of total surprise. I did not expect to enjoy these books. Even after thoroughly enjoying the first book I still put off reading PS I Still Love You for months. To be honest that decision was largely name related. I was worried that the book would make me cringe as hard as the title.
It didn’t, because much like its predecessor, it turned out to be so much more than it seemed.
As in the first book, Jenny Han uses Lara Jean’s teen romance drama to look at some pretty big subjects. If you thought that a book called P.S. I Still Love You wouldn’t be an exploration of slut shaming, you would be wrong. The hot tub incident that caused so much drama at the end of the first book is, like Britney in 2007, a story that refuses to die. It is, also like Britney in 2007, all anyone is talking about. What went from a nasty rumour of sex in a hot tub morphed into a racy photo on Instagram, and then became a meme shared around every student in Lara Jean’s school. Peter, her boyfriend and the other half of the hot tub debacle, gets through the incident relatively unscathed.
Lara Jean and her sisters notice this. They talk about how guys can do whatever they want, but as far as teenage girls are concerned, the idea that they might be having sex is synonymous with them being out of control. Whereas, they notice, guys having a ton of sex are socially rewarded.
As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (or, as she’s otherwise known, my fantasy BFF), points out in We Should All Be Feminists, there is some seriously dubious logic happening here. If all heterosexual boys are supposed to be sexually experienced, and all heterosexual girls are supposed to be innocent virgins… then who is having sex with who, exactly? And yet the paradox continues to be perpetuated by both teens and the adults that are supposed to be teaching them to navigate the world.
In the aftermath of the Instagram post, many teachers approach Lara Jean to express their concerns. She’s repeatedly reminded that she’s ‘not that type of girl’ and ‘better than that’. ‘Better than what?’ she asks herself. ‘Better than who?’
Do you think any teachers expressed such concerns to Lara Jean’s boyfriend, Peter?
Of course they didn’t.
In this book Jenny Han is like Hey Teens Girls, Welcome to Sexism 101. I love her for it. What you expect when you pick up P.S. I Still Love You is a cute romance novel*, but what you get is a teenage girl learning to navigate a world built around misogynist ideas.
I could write a lot more about this book. I could talk at length about how impressed I continue to be with the skilful way that Jenny Han built Lara Jean’s narrative voice. While I don’t exactly agree with the arguments that teenagers in YA are generally unrealistic and ‘too grown up’ – honestly I think that viewpoint does a serious disservice to teenagers – Lara Jean’s internal monologue sounds genuinely young. She thinks like the inexperienced kid that she is. It’s a narrative voice that leaves room for her to grow up, which is something she certainly does through this book. Lara Jean finds that boyfriends take a lot more work than she was expecting, that it’s easy to develop feelings for an idealised ‘someone else’ and that even mean girls are complicated.
I like to think Jenny Han’s books will make me less judgemental of cringe-worthy covers in future.
*You totally get that too, don’t worry.
22isstillyoungadult.wordpress.com 
Oh thank goodness, I’m not the only one who liked Lara Jean’s narrative voice. I LIKED that she sounded very young – for reasons I’ll be outlining my review of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. I mean, I went through a phase of exponential growth mentally and emotionally when I was around 18. Before then, I was very childish and kiddy – very similar to Lara Jean, I suppose.
Did you hear that Jenny Han is going to write a third book for this series? ❤
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I didn’t know there was going to be another one! That makes me very happy. Have you read the sequel yet? A lot of people weren’t into it, but I thought it was such a strong book. She deals with some serious stuff like slut shaming in such an interesting way.
Lara Jean sounding her age is what makes the book so interesting for me. I think part of the reason that I still read so much YA is because characters generally don’t sound that young. But even though I didn’t relate to Lara Jean now, it was really fun being back in the actual teenage mindset for a little while. I’m looking forward to your review 🙂
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I have! I actually liked it slightly more than the first one (probably because I had so many feels for Lara Jean and Peter).
I agree, she does deal with them in an interesting way! And I enjoyed it because not every protagonist is 100% self-aware or socially conscious, so I felt like when Lara Jean stopped to think about something someone else says, that was really meaningful and realistic.
Hehe thanks! If things go to plan, it won’t be until… October. Dx
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