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
Chris and Lara Jean hang out after school, eating popcorn. Lara Jean is aghast when Chris asks how far she’s gone with Peter—she and Margot “aren’t like that.” They argue about whether Margot and Josh had sex. Chris thinks they did, but Lara Jean tells readers that she and Margot made a pact years ago to not have sex until marriage, or until they were very in love and 21. Margot wouldn’t break the pact. But Chris insists that sex isn’t such a big deal. Privately, Lara Jean wonders how scary sex would be.
Lara Jean and Margot’s pact to not have sex before marriage gives the reader more insight about their dynamic as sisters. The pact essentially ensures that the girls will be each other’s closest relationships until they’re older. Mandating marriage before sex also means that the girls will have to form their own new, nuclear families before experiencing physical intimacy, again emphasizing the importance of family for both sisters.
Themes
