I haven’t done one of these posts in a while but since I’m now blogging properly again, I figured I would bring back some of my old features back. Slowly but surely. I started this feature in an attempt to highlight some of my favourite authors, and to also motivate myself to read allllll the books. Some of the authors that I’ll be featuring are already popular in the book community, while others are less so but are still coming out with excellent stuff.
This time I’m chatting about Jenny Han! I discovered her books years ago when I first started blogging. I read the first two books in the Summer trilogy just before the third book was released in the UK, and I’ve been reading her books ever since. Han’s books are always really easy to read, and they often have ships. Which is obviously very important to me.
In the Summer trilogy, a girl called Belly goes to her mother’s best friend’s beach house every summer. She has grown up with Susannah’s two boys, Jeremiah and Conrad, and she develops a crush on both.
I picked up The Summer I Turned Pretty because I wanted a light read, and that’s exactly what this trilogy is. I loved the first book, and the second book was also really good. I can’t remember if I had a strong preference when it came to the ships (there was a love triangle, right?) so that probably means that I didn’t. You could take this to the beach with you and whack the whole trilogy out in a couple of days. I’m not sure how good the ending is, as I haven’t read We’ll Always Have Summer yet, but I’ve heard good things.
My feelings for Han’s second trilogy (which she co-wrote with Siobhan Vivian) are a bit more mixed. The first and second books were absolutely fantastic. I’ve fangirled about both of them. Burn for Burn is a revenge story, where three unlikely friends team up to get back at those who have wronged them. But then Ashes to Ashes happened, and the ending absolutely ruined everything. It’s one of the few books that I’ve added to my f**k-you shelf on Goodreads because it made me so tremendously angry. My ship was ruined in a freaking epilogue.
In To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Lara Jean’s younger sister sends off Lara Jean’s love letters to various boys. It’s hella awkward, but it makes for a great contemporary romance. Lara Jean sounds a bit younger than your average YA protagonist, but over the course of the series, she grows up a lot.
To be honest, I didn’t think this book needed to be a trilogy at first. The first book ended well, and so did the P.S. I Still Love You after Han added that one. She previously said that “organically”, this felt like a duology, so I was sceptical when I heard about Always and Forever, Lara Jean’s publication. That said, I ended up really enjoying the entire trilogy. Each book picks up pretty much where the previous one left off, and they all wrap up well. I liked the continuation of Lara Jean and Peter K’s story, I loved them as a couple, and I loved seeing Lara Jean grow. Also, this is now being turned into a movie! YAAASSSS.
Previously on Author Spotlight
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