Social Structure, Reputation, and High School Theme Analysis

It’s devastating for 16-year-old Lara Jean when five love letters she wrote to boys she used to love are somehow mailed without her permission. Three of the boys (Josh, Peter, and Lucas) go to her school, and Laura Jean is mortified when the boys approach her about the letters they received, in part because Lara Jean thinks of herself as a “Quiet Girl” who doesn’t get much attention from her peers. But when Lara Jean decides to kiss Peter in the crowded school hallway to confuse Josh, she suddenly finds herself thrust into the spotlight. As Peter and Lara Jean embark on their pretend relationship, Lara Jean pays close attention to how her position at school changes, and she becomes more aware of how the broader social structure functions. The novel ultimately shows that the social structure at Lara Jean’s high school is built on assumptions, rumors, and sometimes, a bit of truth; it’s a system where it’s almost impossible to tell who anyone actually is or what they’re actually like. And while the novel offers little hope that the school’s social structure will change, it does show that it’s possible to overcome this damaging system by getting to know people and not making assumptions about them.

Throughout the novel, Lara Jean makes it clear that people’s reputations are extremely important—they’re often the only thing other people know about them. For instance, Lara Jean describes her best friend, Chris, as promiscuous, impulsive, and wild. To most people who don’t know Chris well, that reputation is all Chris is: she’s the girl who got drunk and did a striptease on someone’s roof at a party freshman year, and she’s the one who had sex on the ski trip. Similarly, Lara Jean makes assumptions about other people, such as when she implies that Peter and his friends on the lacrosse team are all “douchey” and not good students. Judgments like these, the novel shows, keep kids from getting to know one another on a deeper level, and they create an environment where rumors and assumptions rule. This is why, for example, Lara Jean and Peter enter into their pretend relationship—they know that their classmates wouldn’t expect Laura Jean to be Peter’s first choice of romantic partner, so it’s an ideal way for them to annoy and confuse Genevieve, Peter’s recent ex-girlfriend. But this environment is also why, later, Genevieve is able to successfully spread the rumor that Lara Jean and Peter had sex in the hot tub on the ski trip, thereby damaging Lara Jean’s reputation as a “Quiet Girl.”

However, the novel also makes it very clear that a person isn’t just their reputation. One example of this is Lara Jean’s friendship with Chris. Chris might have a colorful reputation at school, but Lara Jean suggests that she and Chris still get each other in a way that other people can’t. Put another way, Lara Jean knows that Chris is more than her reputation as a promiscuous partier; Chris is also a good, supportive friend. Over the course of her relationship with Peter, Lara Jean realizes that this is true of him as well. She tells several people that Peter “isn’t what you think,” meaning that he’s not unintelligent and “douchey,” as most people assume. Rather, Peter is kind, generous, and willing to get Lara Jean out of her comfort zone. He encourages her to take risks and grow—all things she never would’ve known about him had they not begun their pretend relationship.

With this, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before suggests that getting to know someone on a deeper level is one way to combat high school’s cutthroat social structure. Knowing someone on a personal level—not just by their reputation—can help stamp out rumors. For instance, when Genevieve starts spreading the rumor that Lara Jean and Peter had sex in the hot tub, Lara Jean immediately gets texts from Josh (a close family friend and a former crush) saying that he doesn’t believe them. With this, Josh starts to push back on the rumor by not spreading it—and, perhaps, by countering it when he hears others talking about it. Further, the novel also shows that getting to know someone more personally can also make them less of a one-dimensional villain. As Lara Jean sees it, Genevieve spreading rumors about her is unforgivable. But Genevieve nevertheless becomes a more sympathetic villain by admitting that when she and Lara Jean were friends as children, Genevieve envied Lara Jean’s tight-knit family and involved parents. A picture emerges of Genevieve as someone who lashes out and hurts others because she herself is hurting—which doesn’t help Lara Jean get over her hurt and betrayal, but it does make Genevieve a more sympathetic and complex character for readers. Thus, while the novel doesn’t go so far as to suggest that getting to know people more intimately is going to solve all the problems with reputation and social structure at Lara Jean’s school, it nevertheless suggests that relying on rumor and reputation to judge others denies people the opportunity to meaningfully connect with their classmates.