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
It’s snowing one evening when Daddy knocks on Lara Jean’s door. He sits down and says they need to talk. Margot talked to him, and he thinks Lara Jean is too young to have sex. He asks if Peter pressured Lara Jean, and he doesn’t seem to believe her when she says they haven’t had sex. Daddy says he made an appointment for Lara Jean to see a gynecologist on Monday. Lara Jean cries and insists that this is all just a rumor, but Daddy says he knows it’s hard to talk about sex with a dad and not a mom. Lara Jean insists that Mommy would believe her, and Daddy apologizes. He pulls her close and says that in his eyes, she’s still Kitty’s age.
Once again, Lara Jean finds that rumors about her sexuality are being used to hurt and control her. Now she has to worry about disappointing Daddy in addition to being seen as promiscuous at school. This feels particularly cruel for Lara Jean, as now she’s not making things easy for Daddy—which is what she and her sisters have spent years trying to do. Now, because he believes she’s sexually active, Lara Jean becomes problematic rather than helpful.
Themes
Lara Jean sobs that everything is a mess—Daddy doesn’t trust her, Margot hates her, and she and Peter are broken up. Daddy assures Lara Jean that he trusts her, and that Margot spoke to him out of concern for Lara Jean. Lara Jean knows this isn’t true—Margot is trying to hurt her. Daddy assures Lara Jean that everything will work out.
To Daddy, it’s unthinkable that Margot would be trying to hurt Lara Jean. That goes against everything he thinks he knows about his daughters. But because he’s such a distant parent, he also doesn’t grasp how betrayed Margot feels.
Themes
Lara Jean thinks that sisters fight in a special way: they say things they can’t take back because they’re too angry to see straight. Once Daddy leaves her room, Lara Jean barges into Margot’s room and says Margot had no right to talk to Daddy. Tightly, Margot insists that Lara Jean doesn’t know what she’s doing, and that Lara Jean has changed. Lara Jean retorts that she’s not going to have sex with Peter just because Margot had sex with Josh. She shouts that this is convenient for Margot: since Daddy is disappointed in Lara Jean right now, he can’t be disappointed in Margot.
Even if Lara Jean is afraid that she and Margot will never make up, she suggests here that being family is a sort of insurance policy. She can have this fight with Margot and trust that everything will still be okay at the end of the day. Lara Jean also suggests that Margot’s behavior is rooted in Margot being uncomfortable with sex. Making Daddy upset with Lara Jean for being sexually active (which isn’t true) is a way for Margot to deflect attention away from herself.
Themes
Lara Jean runs for her room, but Margot follows her in and locks the door. Margot wants to know if Josh shared that they’d had sex, and Lara Jean tries to explain everything. She says that she liked Josh first and swallowed it when he and Margot started dating. When she gets to the point of explaining that she was pretending to date Peter, Margot shakes her head and tells Lara Jean to stop. Lara Jean says she and Josh only kissed once, and he’s still in love with Margot.
Finally, Lara Jean tries to come clean about everything. But while this is a positive for Lara Jean as it suggests she’s maybe ready to give up lying, it doesn’t do much good—her lies have gotten so out of hand and so convoluted that it’s hard for Margot to believe Lara Jean is telling the truth now.
Themes
Get the entire To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before LitChart as a printable PDF.
Her voice trembling, Lara Jean says Margot doesn’t know how much Lara Jean looks up to her. Holding back tears, Margot says that Mommy always told her to take care of her sisters, so Margot did just that. She says it was horrible being so far away, but she had to be the good example and show Lara Jean and Kitty how to be brave. Lara Jean says she knows how much Margot did for them, but Margot continues that when she left, it hurt to discover that her sisters didn’t need her as much as she thought they did. Lara Jean says that’s because Margot taught her everything, and she apologizes. The girls approach each other and cry in each other’s arms. Daddy appears in the doorway and asks if everything is okay.
Margot might not have been ready to hear the truth about Josh and Lara Jean, but it’s easier for her to talk about her relationship with Lara Jean and the rest of the family. Margot reveals that she’s been under immense pressure to care for her siblings—and feeling like she’s no longer needed forces her to rethink who she is and how much value she has. Lara Jean is also willing to tell Margot the truth: that she wants nothing more than her big sister’s approval. For both of them, family is more important than anything else.
Themes
