Thoughts: “P.S. I Still Love You” by Jenny Han

Photo taken from Google Images.

Hello!

So last May 28, I was able to finish reading my third book for the year. I actually went through probably the second half of the book within one day. I actually finished it during the work day while I was working from home. I was feeling kinda unmotivated to work that day and I didn’t really have a lot of tasks that I needed to do that day. So the situation really helped in making me feel immersed in reading and the chapters were really interesting for me which made it difficult for me to put the book down.

The book that I had finished was “P.S. I Still love You”.

[If you don’t like spoilers, please read the book first because I will be putting a short summary of the book.]

The story continues from where “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” ended after Lara Jean and Peter had a falling out around the Christmas holidays. The story started around New Year’s Day. After going to their grandma’s house to celebrate a traditional Korean New Year, Lara Jean decides to be dropped off at Peter’s house to finally talk to him and tell him how she feels about him. After finally talking to each other, they start actually dating. Unfortunately, the same reconciliation didn’t happen for Margaux and Josh who ended up breaking up for good.

After starting to date for real this time, Lara Jean and Peter kept facing a lot of obstacles in their relationship which started with a video of them making out in the hot tub during the ski trip around their winter break. Someone took a video of them and posted it on “Anonybitch” which is like a gossip site. This started to put a bit of a strain on their relationship because Lara Jean believes that the person responsible for this was Genevieve who was her ex-best friend and Peter’s ex-girlfriend. However, Peter didn’t really believe her because he felt that he knew Genevieve better and he thinks that she isn’t capable of doing that. (By the way, we learn that Genevieve really was behind the filming and spreading of the video and Peter learned the truth but didn’t tell Lara Jean about it because he felt like that would be best for Lara Jean. Of course this made her furious when she found out.)

Peter and Lara Jean also broke up for some time because Lara Jean felt like she was always number two for Peter and that he always seemed to choose Genevieve over her. She said that she wanted to be someone’s number one. However, we learn that Peter was only trying to be a good friend for Genevieve because her father had been cheating on her mother so she was having a hard time and she needed a friend that she trusted. This was also the time that Lara Jean realized that she was the one who couldn’t let Genevieve go because she kept comparing herself and her relationship to Peter to what he and Genevieve had. We also learn that Genevieve resented Lara Jean because Peter kissed her when they were in eighth grade and Genevieve had already confided in Lara Jean about liking Peter at that time. What hurt her further was that Lara Jean never tried to tell her about it.

We also get more of John Ambrose McLaren in this book. We get to meet him and learn more about him. We learned that he had liked Lara Jean when they were younger and when they met again. However, unfortunately, it seems like it wasn’t meant to be. Although, it seemed to me that he and Lara Jean had a lot in common and if he had plucked up the courage to ask Lara Jean out to the formal when they were younger, they could’ve probably ended up together.

Props to John Ambrose McLaren that he respected Lara Jean’s feelings and decision to reconcile with Peter despite his feelings for her.

All in all, I thought that this was a good sequel. I loved that we finally get properly introduced to John Ambrose McLaren who we met in the first book for a brief period when Lara Jean went to a model UN conference to catch a glimpse of him to see how he turned out. I actually really liked him and he seemed like a strong contender for Lara Jean’s heart against Peter. I think if we didn’t meet Peter first, I would’ve probably rooted for him and Lara Jean to end up together.

From some of the reactions that I’ve seen about the movies, I thought that I would probably not like Peter here very much. I read that he made a lot of questionable choices in this sequel that made him less deserving of Lara Jean and could lead some fans to vouch for John Ambrose to be with Lara Jean instead. As I was reading, I did kinda get mad at him for seeming to choose Genevieve more or prioritizing her over Lara Jean and then he proceeded to defend his choices by saying he was only trying to be a good friend. This made me a bit mad because by doing that, he wasn’t being a very good boyfriend to Lara Jean because he knows that she wasn’t comfortable with him being so close to his ex-girlfriend who was her ex-best friend. However, I realized that that didn’t necessarily make him a totally bad person because he and Genevieve were still somehow close friends and he was only trying to be a good friend when she needed to confide in someone about the problems that she was going through. I also understood why he couldn’t tell Lara Jean about Genevieve’s problems and secret because it wasn’t his to tell.

For this book, I was actually proud of Lara Jean for wanting to end her and Peter’s relationship when she felt like he was choosing Genevieve over her all the time. I think that was a bit empowering to read about because she felt like she deserved to be number one so she decided to leave a relationship where she felt like she was and will always be number two. I think that that was a nice way to show self-love because she put herself first instead of trying to always compete with the idea of Genevieve and Peter’s past relationship despite knowing that she’ll also get hurt with her decision.

That’s all for now, bye!