Plot Synopsis:

Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her.

They aren't love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones shes written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean's love life goes from imaginary to out of control.


I looked for this book fore AGES!I guess it's because it ranked as National Bookstore's #1 best selling Young Adult novel. So when I found a small pile of them at a mall one day, I instantly grabbed one!

Lara Jean Song writes love letters to crushes she had before, she pours her feeling unto them and after she's finished she's positively over them, she keeps them safe in a hatbox that she keeps in her closet. Crushes like Josh Sanderson, their next-door neighbor and her older sister Margot's boyfriend, and Peter Kavinsky the smug-but-funny bastard the you simply can't help but love.

So when all her letters are shipped to their addresses one day--all hell breaks loose for Lara Jean.


So when She's confronted with Josh about the letter she "gave" him, she forms a fake relationship with Peter K to save face. Peter K, the only boy she hates.

At first I thought that it was a terribly bad idea to have even a fake relationship with Peter, but I soon found myself questioning myself what's real and what's pretend. Where do I draw the line with all their "pretend" lovey-dovey scenes? You'd think the plot is straight-forward but it's really, really not. Full of twists and turns, this book. I sometimes found myself forgetting that it's all a ruse, a lie, until she explicitly says that it's not all real.


What shock me more is that Josh actually reciprocates some of her affections! With just a few more weeks before Margot returns for Christmas break, can Lara Jean fix this complicated mess of a lovelife of hers?

I really liked Peter Kavinsky's character, he's this dashingly smug, gloating, and sporty/jocky kind of guy who always throws wise-cracks but that's part of his charm! At first I thought he was a complete douche but I came to look forward to whenever he and Lara Jean hung out. Team Lara Jean/Peter K all the way!

Lara Jean Song, she originally struck me as this more-or-less ordinary girl who never had a boyfriend before despite the fact that she's pretty cute (Refer to cover) and someone who cries a lot in the first few chapters. I mean, she cried, like, 5 times in the first 100 pages. She the lovestruck middle child to her younger sister Kitty and her older sister Margot.
Margot who's gone away for college in Scotland, she's also the one everyone looks up to and looks to for most everything like advice. But now that she's away, Lara Jean has to look out for adorable Kitty and be a role model to her.

The way Jenny Han wrote this book was all girly, cute, and bubbly and I think it fits perfectly with Lara Jean's personality! It's just her writing styles that puts that certain lightness and relaxed tone that's a real relief to someone who've just read A Study in Scarlet or to persons who usually read books of a more serious topic.

This was a definite page turner that glued my butt to my seat!  The cover! The characters! I loved every page of it!  This makes me want to travel back in time just to meet and greet and have my books signed by Jenny Han!

“Seventeen's not so young. A hundred years ago people got married when they were practically our age."
"Yeah, that was before electricity and the Internet. A hundred years ago eighteen-year-old guys were out there fighting wars with bayonets and holding a man's life in their hands! They lived a lot of life by the time they were our age. What do kids our age know about love and life?”

“Your house is lovely,” I say, even though it isn’t. It’s old; it could use a good cleaning. But the things inside it are lovely.

“It’s empty now. All my things sold up. Can’t take it with you, you know.”

“You mean when you die?” I whisper.

He glares at me. “No. I mean to the nursing home.”

Title: It's Not Summer Without You
Author: Jenny Han                       
Publication Date: April 5 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: Trade Paperback
Price: ₱349 (Philippines) - $8.80 (Amazon)


Plot Synopsis:




It's Not Summer Without You is the second book of Jenny Han's The Summer I Turned Pretty Trilogy, with The Summer I Turned Pretty as it's first installment which can be found here.

Is it really summer without the beach? Or the boys?

This is the first summer in Belly and her family's lives where they won't be going to Cousin's Beach for summer. Which is crazy! I know, but you'll find out later rather than sooner.

Well, Belly's still a tad bit naggy and whiny as always and Conrad's still as distant and somewhat a dick as ever. I mean, I sometimes feel that he doesn't give too much effort for their relationships. I sometimes don't understand him, him and his personality.
All throughout the book I can't quite figure out his overall mood/personality, one minute he's a romantic Casanova, and then the next he's a shy recluse.
What does Belly see in him? Jeremiah and Belly? Perfect!
But you'll know why he ran away from their house and school by the latter half of the book. He didn't do it to surf. He didn't do it for the sake of running away. He (Data Expunged). (Sorry for that! But that could've spoiled everything)

It wasn't like how it was with Conrad and Aubrey. He'd loved her. once upon a time, he'd been crazy about her. He had never been that way with me. Never. But I had loved him. I loved him longer and truer than I had anyone in my whole life and I would probably never love anyone that way again. Which, to be honest, was almost a relief.