Always and Forever, Lara Jean
Author: Jenny Han
Series: To All the Boys I've Loved Before #3
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers
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Lara Jean is having the best senior year. And there’s still so much to look forward to: a class trip to New York City, prom with her boyfriend Peter, Beach Week after graduation, and her dad’s wedding to Ms. Rothschild. Then she’ll be off to college with Peter, at a school close enough for her to come home and bake chocolate chip cookies on the weekends. Life couldn’t be more perfect! At least, that’s what Lara Jean thinks . . . until she gets some unexpected news. Now the girl who dreads change must rethink all her plans—but when your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?
MY REVIEW
The To All the Boys I've Loved Before series is one of those series that is really hard to be "critical" towards because of the series' goal is obviously just purely for entertainment. It's not trying to be the best book of the year, so it's quite frank and not-ashamed when it comes to just having a really innocent, simple, and realistic storyline. However, in my opinion, simplicity is also beauty. Hence with Jenny Han's efforts to make a simple story, she made an excellent book and finale as a result. Less is more in a lot of scenarios, people. Ultimately, that is the most I can say without spoilers. The thing is, what's most impressive about this series is not its "uniqueness", amazing characters or unusual storylines. It's just how...everyday it is that made this series what it is (and how identifiable it is) in the best way possible. The conclusion for Lara-Jean and Peter is cute, satisfactory, and conclusive. Even though we didn't get the usual"flash-forward" so the readers could be completely assured that they did end up together, I liked how...peaceful this finale was. I really appreciated how Jenny Han did not purposely force in extra unnecessary drama just to "spice it up", so Always and Forever, Lara Jean did its job perfectly to leave a good impression for me as a reader.
Rating:
4/5
about the author
Jenny Han is the New York Times bestselling author of Shug, The Summer I Turned Pretty series, co-author of the Burn for Burn series, and most recently, the To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy. She is a former children's bookseller and children's librarian. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
