To All the Boys I've Loved Before: Jenny Han (Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge: A book made into a movie you've already seen)

This was one of those rare occasions where I watched a movie, loved it, found out it was a book first and had to read the book. Sometimes that works. This time, not so much.

It was hard to enjoy this book after loving the movie so much. They are so different it's hard to compare them. I'll try to judge this simply as a book without letting the movie cloud my judgment, but I'll probably fail.

It took me a while to get into the book. I can't really explain it, but the writing was dull and slow. It was very monotonous, and I felt like the characters didn't have any depth. Things were slow to pick up, but Han kept writing, which seemed like she was only writing to fill pages. It got better when the story started picking up again, but that took too long.

I didn't like any of the characters, actually. They were all quite mean and nasty to each other and to themselves, even (especially) in the family. Margot leaves for college, and when she comes back, she acts as though she can't be bothered to stoop to the level of her family, and while I get that college changes people, based on the tight-knit family of the beginning, Margot's change shouldn't have been that drastic.

Peter was just a brat the entire time. Even when they started dating officially, he was still kind of a jerk. And the same can be said for Lara Jean. They weren't really ever nice to each other and it was annoying to have to read that. Plus, their fake relationship doesn't give me enough evidence to believe the real relationship. They don't seem to act like they truly like each other, until all of the sudden, they do, and they're dating for real.

I also thought the character of Josh was very weak and uninspired. His actions throughout the book don't make any sense and just confusing because there's nothing that would justify or explain what he does and how he behaves, and it makes Josh a nuisance instead of the lovable best friend he's supposed to be.

I'm reading the second book now (mainly because I heard they're making that into a movie too), and I'm hoping for some better plot and stronger characters, but we'll see!