6/06/2017

always & forever, Lara Jean // Jenny Han

published: 5/2/2017
pages: 325
isbn: 978-1-4814-3048-7
read: 5/29 to 6/5 - 2017
rating: ugh. I LOVED IT!

Lara Jean is having the best senior year a girl could ever hope for. She is head over heels in love with her boyfriend, Peter; her dad’s finally getting remarried to their next door neighbor, Ms. Rothschild; and Margot’s coming home for the summer just in time for the wedding.

But change is looming on the horizon. And while Lara Jean is having fun and keeping busy helping plan her father’s wedding, she can’t ignore the big life decisions she has to make. Most pressingly, where she wants to go to college and what that means for her relationship with Peter. She watched her sister Margot go through these growing pains. Now Lara Jean’s the one who’ll be graduating high school and leaving for college and leaving her family—and possibly the boy she loves—behind

MY THOUGHTS
AHHHH!!!!!! 
THIS BOOK! 
THIS SERIES!!!

i accidentally picked up  book 1 hating that i picked up, unknowingly, another series (found out after i had already finished it.) 
at the end, i thought to myself, why is there a need for book 2 when one could've been a few pages longer and could have been finished all at once? 

but now that i finished the 3rd and last Lara Jean book, I'm very happy that i read them all. and if I'm being even more honest, yesterday when i finished this book i thought to myself that i really wasn't ready to let go of Lara Jean and everyone in her world.
I'm actually hoping to own the set sometime in the future so i can re-read it. 

yesterday, Sarah blogged this post and i learned that I have a Logician personality which, of the many things it means, it also means that i think mostly about the big picture of the subject vs the feelings of the person whom that picture might be affecting. 
even my own. (logic > feelings)
and this book proved that to be true. 

that ending!!!!!!
it ends so good! 
part of me wanted to know what happens in the future. do they end up marrying each other? do they make it through college? what happens! but then the other half of me is like "who cares. enjoy this for what it is and for what it gave you!" 
i cried starting chapter 37 until i finished it!

it's a very well written book (even if i did find that typo on pg 136!!!) it makes you feel everything that it should. 
it does what it was supposed to do and it wrapped the story up just like it should have. 
how could it give you their "future" when it's barely starting?
this story is about Lara Jean going off to college so it only makes sense that that's where it ends. 
it's up to you to imagine whatever you want from there. 

i will admit that i did dislike Lara Jean for a bit because she was acting childish but she eventually got her shit together. 

i hated Margo for being such a bitch to Trina but Lara Jean finally put her in her place so i guess she was okay in the end. 

for a bit there, i LOVED Peter. half of the things he did for Lara, UGH I WISH!!!!! and then he turned into a jerk and i was kinda mad at him for his reaction towards Lara's college decisions but he got it together in the end. and i couldn't love the kid more. 

his mother though, she takes the cake for top notch bitch. 
i won't say why but UGH!
and that's not something i take back. 
and yes this is based on feelings because i can see why she did what she did but still i think she went about it the wrong way. 
i think this is the only part of the book where I'm thinking feelings vs logic. 

and Kittie!!!!!!! i loved her! i still love her! i can only hope and hope that Han will sometime, maybe, later on in life write a book about her. cause how can we see 2 Song girls go to college but not her!!!! 

any who, this book. loved it. 

ill leave you with some faves. <3

I thought the hottest places in hell were reserved for women who don't help other women. 
Margo pg 130 (boy did Taylor Swift get a lot of mileage out of that quote.)

I'm a person who saves things. I'll hold on forever. - Lara pg 310



You can't protect him from being hurt, babe, no matter what you do. being vulnerable, letting people in, getting hurt...it's all a part of being in love. 
-Trina pg 314

the entire first chapter on pg 320. 
way to fucking go Peter! <3

JUST RANDOM: (page 106) Lara Jean doesn't like frozen bread but will eat leftover frozen pizza that she froze herself. that was kinda odd to me. is that a thing?  I'm down for cold pizza but this was another story. 

anyway, as always, spoilers below!
thanks for reading. 

#lesreads on IG

uhm, so they're still dating. 

Peter gets into UVA and Lara doesn't so there goes their "being together in college" plans. 
she gets into William & Mary and the plan is that she'll go there for a year and then transfer out to UVA so they can be together. 

then she gets an email from UNC that she's off the wait list and that she's actually been accepted. 
she's happy but she's thisclosetothrowingitallaway just to be near Peter (this is where i thought she was being stupid.) then Chris (her best friend) takes her over to UNC (3.25 hrs away) to show her the campus and so they can check it out before she tosses it all out for a boy and it worked. she decides that she will be going to UNC. 

Peter gets butt hurt and they stopped being them for a while. they're still together but it's different. 

Peter's mom asks Lara Jean to break up with Peter because he was thinking of transferring over to UNC so they can be together after a year. 
if he does that, he loses a year of playing lacrosse which means he loses his scholarship and being a single mother, she can't afford that. 
his father claims to want to help but they know better than to believe. 

she's stunned but after getting tipsy at the Karaoke bar the girls go to for Trina's bachelorette party, she breaks up with him. based on what his mother says and what her mother used to say: "Don't be the girl who goes to college with a boyfriend." 

they're broken up and she tried apologizing but he won't have it. 

then he shows up the day of her father's wedding. 
and they work it out. 
and they end up going to college together. i mean as a couple, not like, to the same one. 

well, it ends with them going to watch a meteor shower but that's the gist of it. 
they will try long distance. 

and that's it. 
of course there's a lot that i left out but this is the point of it all. 

goodbye Lara Jean, and Peter, and Kittie and Margo & Dad and Trina and Chris and everyone. 
*insert crying emoji face*

4 comments

  1. But it would have been so good if we got to know the future too. I mean when they get to different colleges.How they work out their long distance and whether she transfers after 1st year to UVA and finally do they end up marrying each other.. I don't know, It feels kinda incomplete to me. . Wish we got to know.!!!

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    Replies
    1. i think there's a certain beauty in leaving it as it ends.
      if we delve into college life and do they get married...it opens up to way more books and frankly, i think 3 is enough.
      and it ends nicely as they start their new lives and that's just for them.

      i think as a reader you have the freedom to imagine their future however you like.
      for me, im just glad it ended after book 3. lol

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  2. Hey, I cried so much for this book, as it didn't end the way I wanted to do. It was clarity on life to emphasis the fact that nothing is forever. When the author wrote this is the end for Lara,
    it kind felt incomplete like a missing puzzle. Have you started to watch the Netflix series?

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    Replies
    1. hiii!!!!

      ooops!
      sorry i just saw your message.
      im not on here too often right now. and all i ever get is usually spam so i forget to check my comments! (sorry again!)

      i did see the first movie and i think i remember liking it. i know the second one is out (has been out) and i started it buuuuuuttt i haven't finished it and i dont know if i will. at least not any time soon.

      im at the part where she bumps into JM in the home....at least i know i've gotten that far.
      overall, im not really a tv person so its super rare when i want to watch a movie (i usually leave it on for background noise at work so i listen to the same shows over and over) so maybe one day ill jump back into it...
      and i have a horrible memory so i dont really remember a lot of it but i do remember loving the crap out of the last book. i was crying by the end because i remember wanting to strangle her for her decisions but then loving the way it ended. ...but i will admit, i just took the story at face value, i didnt really think about what else could have been done. i was just over it by then. lol. i need to catch up again on this series. maybe if the 3rd movie comes out? that way, i can read and watch!

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