P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2)

by Jenny Han

[jeannamichel]

So many feelings right now!

Lara Jean and Peter are back in the sequel everyone has been waiting for. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before ends with the realization that maybe Lara Jean likes Peter, not just in that pretending way they have been in the whole time. Maybe she likes him for real. In P.S. I Still Love You, Lara Jean and Peter make a new contract for their new, real relationship with one condition.

“I don’t want us to ever break each other’s hearts.”

With that, their relationship sparks new hiccups and understandings which neither of them could have foreseen. This novel is a simple, yet enchanting romance which concludes the duology.
Jenny Han has created such a gorgeous work of art. I know I discussed Lara Jean’s family life in the first review as being one of the most realistic looks at teen life in a long time. The family we all loved is back but seem to become the backdrop of other happenings. Han tackles cyber bullying which only supports her very real plot. Not to mention the underlying theme of growing out of certain friendships will certainly speak to any teen. Both novels are extremely relatable.

Peter has never been the most interesting of characters. Even in To All the Boys, I found him a little cliché, as well as annoying. Getting to know him better in the first prepared me for what was to come in P.S. I Still Love You but it also helped me to keep changing my mind on which boy I liked better. Remember John? He was another boy who received a letter in the first and he basically encompasses every girls’ dream boy. If things were different, it would certainly be an entirely different novel.

Upon a closer reading (here’s the English major in me speaking), the mention of The Sound of Music becomes an extended metaphor for the end of the novel. Without giving too much away, the end scene takes place in a treehouse which is about to be demolished, in order to become a gazebo. Thus, Peter indirectly represents the boy who turned out to be a secret Nazi (in The Sound of Music) and Lara Jean, the naïve girl. This observation just concludes that if there were to be another sequel, I don’t think Peter would be in the picture much longer.

The ending itself is satisfactory, neither good nor bad. It is a bit in between. It is not a perfect ending, nor an open-ended one. Lara Jean and Peter will continue their lives—it is the sort of ending like an audience would have at the theater. The curtains are drawn and it is over.

P.S. I Still Love You was truly superb. It was a fantastic sequel and, overall, the series is definitely worth many rereads in the future. It is raw, real, and enticing. Jenny Han has crafted an amazing series which readers will love long after they have finished it.