P.S. I Still Love You

What's inside (6 sections)

1. John Ambrose
2. Phone calls, secrets and saying sorry
3. Baking, clothes and Stormy wisdom
4. Family and friends
5. Key takeaways
6. FAQ

I reread To All the Boys before starting P.S. I Still Love You because I wanted Lara Jean's voice fresh. The sequel, 337 pages from Simon and Schuster, published May 26, 2015, ISBN 9781442426740, second in To All the Boys I've Loved Before, picks up weeks after Lara Jean and Peter get together for real. I read it in two evenings and smiled through most, even while wanting to shake both teens once an hour. That is the correct response to a good young love story.

Lara Jean Song Covey is sixteen, half Korean, a baker of snickerdoodles, a writer of letters she never meant to send. In book one those letters mailed by accident and forced her into a fake romance with Peter Kavinsky to make her sister's ex back off. By the end the fake turned true. Now they must do the harder thing. Be ordinary together at school where everyone watched the ski trip hot tub video and decided what it meant.

School feels different this time. Peter is still lacrosse popular, still high fiving guys in the hall, still driving with music loud. Lara Jean is still careful with skirts and hair ribbons, still packing lunches with notes. What changed is the audience. Couples at this age always have witnesses. Every lunch seat choice gets read as a message. Every time Peter is late to meet her, someone has a theory. Lara Jean tries to act breezy about it. She is not breezy. She keeps score in her head and then feels silly for keeping score.

That is why her narration still charms me. She notices fabric and frosting and the exact words of a text. She makes lists for feelings she cannot say out loud. She replays a hallway hello the way other people replay games. If you liked her fussiness in book one, you will feel right at home. If you wanted her to toughen up fast, give her time. This book lets her stay soft while she learns to speak up.

The video is the first test. Someone posted Lara Jean and Peter kissing in a tub. Rumors say more happened. Lara Jean, private and modest, feels exposed in hallways. Peter, popular and used to talk, gets angry on her behalf but handles it in boy ways that miss. He jokes, he postures, he tells guys to shut up. Lara Jean wants him to understand shame, and not only defend honor. Their talks loop. He says trust me. She says then tell me about Genevieve. He says there is nothing to tell. She hears the gap.

They have the same fight in new places. Car. Kitchen. Bleachers. Phone at midnight. Lara Jean asks for plain facts. Peter gives short answers because he thinks details will hurt her more. She hears the short answers as hiding. He hears her questions as refusal to trust. Both are partly right, which is why it stings. I recognized that loop from real teen dating, and from adult dating too. One person wants the full story to feel safe. The other holds back the full story to keep things calm. Nobody feels calm.

John Ambrose

John Ambrose McClaren answers a letter. He was the kind boy in Lara Jean's past, the one with Model UN blazers and thank you notes. He writes back warmly after receiving her old crush letter. They trade letters, then texts. When the neighborhood tree house faces teardown, Lara Jean plans a reunion to dig up a time capsule. John comes. He is polite to her dad, sweet to her little sister Kitty, easy with her older sister Margot on video calls. He remembers details. What song she liked in seventh grade. What she buried and why.

Peter brings Genevieve to the tree house party though Lara Jean asked him not to. That choice poisons the day. Genevieve is Peter's ex, sharp and wounded, used to running his life. Lara Jean watches them team up in Assassins, the tag game they all played as kids, and feels sidelined in her own plan. John notices and partners with her. They laugh. They win rounds. For a few hours Lara Jean lets herself wonder about the other path. The boy who writes back versus the boy who explains late.

Han writes this triangle without making either boy a villain. Peter is loyal but careless with truth. He knew Genevieve posted the video and hid it to protect Lara Jean from worse drama, which backfires. John is kind but curated. He shows his best manners while hiding his own recent hurt. Lara Jean likes being seen by John after feeling judged at school. She also loves Peter's family chaos, his mom's kitchen, his brother's teasing. The choice is not good versus bad. It is which hard to pick.

John gets extra shading at the retirement home, which I appreciated on this read. He visits his grandmother Stormy with easy affection. He knows how she takes tea. He teases her about card games and loses on purpose. You see him as a grandson first. That makes his late admission hit more. He is not only the golden memory boy. He is a teen who got dumped and wants to feel chosen again. Lara Jean clocks that, and it helps her see him clearly instead of as an escape.

Belleview retirement home gives the book its warm center. Lara Jean volunteers, or rather invents volunteering to avoid a hospital gift shop job, and ends up running a scrapbook hour. Stormy, John's grandmother, runs the room like a queen. Big hair, red lips, stories about husbands and travel. She tells Lara Jean that boys need to be useful and girls need to be adored, which Lara Jean half rejects and half pockets. Their scenes are funny and tender. Stormy sees through Lara Jean's good girl act and loves her anyway. When Lara Jean learns Stormy is John's grandmother, the threads pull tight in a satisfying way.

I laughed out loud at the driving lesson with Stormy and the lipstick advice. Stormy tells stories that sound wild and then drops a plain truth about grief. She lost people. She kept going. She kept dressing up. Lara Jean, who still misses her mom in daily flashes, listens hard. Those chats give Lara Jean a model for being romantic without going small. You can love pink and still ask for respect. You can cry and still set rules.

Phone calls, secrets and saying sorry

This middle stretch lives on phones. Lara Jean checks hers too much. Peter answers too little. Genevieve calls at the worst times. John texts at the best times. Han nails that imbalance without making it feel like a lecture about screens. It is about access. Who gets a fast reply. Who gets left on read. Who you call when you are upset versus who you wish you could call.

Peter keeps one big secret too long. He knows Genevieve shared the video. He does not tell Lara Jean because he thinks he can fix it quietly by keeping Genevieve close. From his side, it almost makes sense. He grew up with Genevieve. He knows her family is cracking. He thinks telling Lara Jean will shame her again and start a war at school. From Lara Jean's side, it feels awful. She finds out late, from others, and has to redo every memory of the last weeks. Were they managing her. Were they laughing at her. She hates that dizzy feeling.

I found myself talking back to Peter here. Just say it plain, kid. Early and fully. He tries to apologize with gestures. Rides. Snacks. Showing up. Those help for an hour. Then the missing facts still sit there. Lara Jean does not need perfect. She needs full sentences about what happened and what will change. When he finally says it straight, late in the book, you can feel her shoulders drop. Not because the news is good. Because at last she can react to what is real.

Lara Jean keeps her own smaller secrets, which keeps things fair. She does not tell Peter how often she writes to John at first. She does not tell him she likes how John looks at her. She frames it as nothing, then as friendship, then as confusion she will sort out alone. Han lets her be a little shady here, in a very human way. Lara Jean wants comfort without a label. She wants to test a feeling without admitting she is testing it. When Peter senses distance, he is not inventing it.

The sorry scenes work because they are clumsy. Nobody gives a smooth speech. Peter stumbles. Lara Jean cries and then gets mad at herself for crying. John apologizes for pushing too fast and then pushes again with a look. Parents step in with short, useful lines. Lara Jean's dad says to ask for what you need before resentment hardens. Margot says by phone that love without honesty turns thin. Kitty, blunt as ever, says do not date two boys at once if you cannot even text one back on time. That line made me snort.

What I took from this part is simple. Trust in this book is built in daylight. Short calls help. Long walks help more. Saying I messed up without adding but you made me helps most. Lara Jean starts to ask for that directly. She tells Peter she wants his phone open, his ex out of their plans, and no more kind lies. She tells John she will not be a prize for good manners. Plain talk costs her blushes. She does it anyway.

Baking, clothes and Stormy wisdom

One pleasure of this series is how much daily life stays in frame. Lara Jean still bakes when she is stressed. Snickerdoodles when happy. Chocolate chip when restless. A lemon cake that leans when she is rushing to Belleview. She brings cookies to the retirement home and learns who likes extra sugar and who pretends not to. Food is her way of saying I am thinking of you without having to find perfect words. Han writes kitchen scenes with heat and mess and timers going off, which keeps them from feeling cute for cute sake.

Clothes do similar work. Lara Jean plans outfits like armor. A soft sweater when she wants comfort at school. A dress with pockets for the tree house dig because she knows she will crouch and climb. Red lip gloss borrowed from Stormy's advice before a party, wiped off in the car because it feels too bold, then reapplied because why not. I love that wobble. It shows a girl trying styles for confidence, not for boys. Peter likes her no matter what, which is nice, but the point is she likes herself more when she chooses on purpose.

Letters still matter, even as texts take over. Lara Jean rereads John's notes until the folds soften. She keeps Peter's short notes too, though his handwriting is worse and his jokes are dumber. She writes drafts she does not send, which feels true to a writer brain. The time capsule letter she buried as a kid makes her laugh and ache. She was so sure then about favorites and futures. Now she knows favorites change. She keeps the old paper anyway. It proves she felt deeply before and survived it.

Stormy ties food, clothes and letters together. She tells Lara Jean to wear the bright color, to order dessert, to keep love notes from people who earned them. She also tells her to throw away notes that make her feel small. Her advice is old fashioned in wording and sharp in meaning. Be adored, yes, but only by someone who shows up and tells the truth. Lara Jean argues in her head with some of it. She should. She is sixteen and figuring out which sayings fit her own life. Still, you can see Stormy's lines settling into her choices by the end.

Family and friends

The Covey family holds the edges. Dad is gentle, dating again with neighbor Trina, trying not to push. Margot, home briefly before Scotland, tells Lara Jean to get a job and stop living in letters. Kitty, younger and blunt, schemes to set Dad up and to keep Lara Jean honest. Kitchen talks about condoms, college, and Korean food ground the romance in real house life. I loved the kimchi pancake scene where no one talks about boys for ten pages and everyone just cooks.

Dad deserves more credit. He drives without prying. He stocks the fridge for baking experiments. He asks Peter direct questions without threat. When Lara Jean cries about the video shame, he listens first and fixes second. His romance with Trina is handled with care. He is nervous. He wants permission from his girls without putting weight on them. Kitty pushes him forward. Margot watches from afar by video. Lara Jean learns that parents date with nerves too, which softens her view of him as only Dad.

Chris, Lara Jean's wild friend, gets sharper lines here. She calls out Peter's gaps and John's polish in the same breath. She also shows up when it counts, driving Lara Jean to Stormy's side and sitting through boring game rules. Genevieve gets a late humanizing turn. Her father cheats. Her mother cries. She clings to Peter because he is the only stable boy she knows. Han does not excuse the video post, but she explains the loneliness behind control. I still disliked Genevieve. I understood her a bit more.

The Assassins game structures the middle and works well. Each target forces pairs to talk. Lara Jean must hunt Peter with John's help. Peter must hunt while guarding Genevieve's secret. Rules force proximity and confession. Lara Jean wins by playing steady rather than flashy, which fits her. Her wish, to go back to before, she spends wisely in the final tree house talk. She tells Peter she wants forward, not rewind, and names what trust needs now. Phone open. Ex out of loop. No more well meant lies.

What works is voice and detail. Lara Jean narrates in present tense with lists, recipes, and outfit notes that never feel filler. Han knows how teens text, apologize, and repeat mistakes. The romance beats are specific. A hand on a back in a hallway. A shared umbrella that fails. A letter reread until soft. At 337 pages the pace never sags. School, home, Belleview, tree house rotate cleanly.

What drags is repetition of the central worry. Are Peter and Genevieve too close. Lara Jean asks in many ways across many chapters. Peter answers in many non answers. The loop is realistic and a touch wearying by page 250. John stays a bit too perfect for a bit too long; his late flaw arrives fast. Stormy's maxims, while fun, sometimes state themes the scenes already showed. Readers who want steam will find kisses and locked doors but nothing explicit. That fits the age and tone.

Content notes are light. Underage drinking at a party. A nonconsensual video shared at school, discussed as violation without graphic detail. Language mild. Family grief for a dead mother present throughout. No assault glorified. The book models asking for help from parents and elders, which I appreciated.

How to read it in series. Read book one first or watch the first film, but the book gives more letters and kitchen life. Do not skip to the Netflix second film before this book if you want John's full arc; the film trims Belleview. After, go to Always and Forever, Lara Jean for college choices. This middle book is about choosing in public. First love under watch.

I closed the Simon and Schuster hardcover fond of all three teens and rooting for the right pair for Lara Jean now, which for me is Peter if he learns plain speech. John would be easier for a semester. Peter could be better for years if he stops managing her feelings and starts telling whole truths early. Lara Jean's growth matters more than the boy. She stops writing to hide and starts speaking to fix. She keeps baking, keeps lettering, but mails fewer secrets. That shift from paper courage to face courage is the book's quiet win, and it made me forgive the love triangle mechanics that got us there.

FAQ

When was P.S. I Still Love You published?

It was published May 26, 2015 by Simon and Schuster. The hardcover runs 337 pages with ISBN 9781442426740.

What happens in book two?

Lara Jean dates Peter while John Ambrose McClaren answers one of her old letters, forcing her to choose between safe memory and live trust.

Is it part of a series?

Yes. It is book two of To All the Boys I have Loved Before, between book one and Always and Forever, Lara Jean.