Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family, Responsibility, and Growing Up
Love and Fear
Social Structure, Reputation, and High School
Lies vs. Honesty
Summary
Analysis
Margot has always insisted that junior year is the most important year of high school. Lara Jean figures that if that’s true, she should get her pleasure reading in now, before school starts. She’s on the front porch reading a British spy romance from the 1980s when Josh comes out of his house to get the mail and then walks over to say hi. He invites Lara Jean and Kitty to see a movie later and teases Lara Jean about her “trashy” novel.
Lara Jean seems to have every intention of making Margot proud and doing what Margot says, if she’s trying to get her pleasure reading in now. This makes it seem like per Margot, Lara Jean won’t have any time to do fun things once the school year starts. But Lara Jean also doesn’t seem as academically driven as Margot, as evidenced in part by this “trashy” novel.
Themes
Kitty is thrilled to see a movie with Josh. She sits in the middle, and Josh and Lara Jean smile at each other over her head. Margot always sat in the middle at movies, too, not wanting Lara Jean to feel left out. She’s a really good big sister like that, but Lara Jean still sometimes felt left out. Now that Lara Jean is the one in the front seat with Josh instead of Margot, she realizes it’s not so different to be in Margot’s spot.
It's a bit of a shock for Lara Jean to realize that although she’s growing up, and certain things are new and different, some parts of her life still feel the same. This starts to show Lara Jean that Margot perhaps isn’t so different from her, even if Margot seems far more mature and put together.
Themes
Chris calls Lara Jean later while Lara Jean is painting her toenails. Chris is obviously at a loud party and shares that Genevieve dumped Peter Kavinsky—she’s been cheating on him with a college guy. Lara Jean met Chris through Genevieve, because Chris and Genevieve are cousins. They fight all the time and look nothing alike. Chris was wild during freshman year, to the point that Genevieve forced Peter to shut down rumors about Chris’s promiscuity. Lara Jean thought that was nice, but according to Chris, Genevieve only did it to help her own reputation.
The revelation that Genevieve and Peter broke up suggests that the social structure at school is going to be in flux once the school year starts. The backstory about Genevieve and Chris also speaks to how important students’ reputations are to them—no matter why Genevieve asked Peter to shut down the rumors about Chris, the fact remains that she was trying to preserve someone’s reputation (either her own or Chris’s).
Themes
