ICYMI: Edward 2.0: My review of Jenny Han's To all the Boys I've Loved Before

I am so mad I used my Audible credit on this book.

Like  a lot of people are doing right now (according to Goodreads this is one of the most read books this week), I decided to read To all the Boys I've Loved Before after seeing the adorable, still recommended Netflix version of the film. After all, we all know the rule: if the movie is good, the book has to be better, right?

Not in this case.

First, the love story falls flat because the characters have little to know chemistry. Peter K. is dull, oafish, and frankly, pretty damn problematic. In fact, while reading this book and some of his expectations for Lara Jean, I was constantly reminded of Edward Cullen from Twilight and I wanted to scream: being controlled and bossed around my some douche hat is not romantic!

Let's start with the plot line because you will need to know it to get my rage: Lara Jean Covey is an intensely shy, naive high school Junior who quietly pines over boys by writing them love letters. One day, her younger sister gets mad and sends them all out, which leads to chaos. One of the "boys she loved" is her sister's ex-boyfriend and her neighbor, Josh. In order to distract him from the letter, she enters a fake dating plot with another letter recipient, the recently dumped-by-Genevieve: Peter K.

You needed to know all this because once the inevitable attraction sparks between Lara Jean and Peter K., Peter is constantly jealous and controlling of Lara Jean's relationship with Josh, even though the whole thing she was supposed to get out of the relationship with Peter was the ability to be friends with Josh (she wanted things to go back to normal after the weirdness). Meanwhile, when Lara Jean expresses her discomfort at his relationship with Genevieve (who he actively loves and admits to loving), she's basically told to suck it up. don't get me wrong, I think Peter's reaction is healthy: people should be able to continue friendships after breakups and partners should trust those friendships. What isn't cool is the double standard: Peter expects Lara Jean to avoid even the appearance of a close friendship to Josh, but tells her that Gen will "always be in {his} life."

Peter K. is also incredibly controlling of Lara Jean, mocking her taste, telling her how to wear her hair, not allowing her to skip events she doesn't want to go to. He doesn't care about her comfort and bullies her into doing things under the guise of trying new things, but when she wants to do something actually healthy, like drive, he is pretty quick to be put out because of how it will affect their arrangement. Lara Jean notes this when she is afraid to go on the ski trip with him because he "has a way of talking [her] into things [she] doesn't want to do." that's a pretty common theme: Lara Jean wasn't just chosen for their scheme because everything fell into place that way: Peter seems to really enjoy having a shy, [passive girl that he can manipulate into giving him his way.It's honestly pretty predatory.

the rest of my complaints are far less serious than the toxic nature of their relationship: Peter is boring, Margot is a stuck up hypocrite, the book is super sex-negative . . .

As a progressive chick in 2018, this book was just not my thing. Maybe it will be yours. If you like bland romantic comedies, this one's probably for you.