Merrie H. Reagan

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before-by Jenny Han

Sunday, August 30, 2026

Dear Jenny Han, “You had me at Hello”, after I read the first few lines of young adult novel To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, recently recommended to me by word of mouth. I was hooked when in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before preface, protagonist Lara Jean Song Covey innocently and amusingly stated, “I like to save things. Not important things like whales or people or the environment.  Silly Things. Porcelain bells, the kind you get at souvenir shops. Cookie cutters you will never use, because who needs a cookie in the shape of a foot? Love letters.

Through Lara Jean, you explained that love letters Ms. Covey wrote, five in total, hold a unique place in her heart because said letters were written “for when she does not want to be in love anymore.”  Lara Jean clarifies the state of not being in love anymore and emotional relief this offers saying, “I can eat my cereal and not wonder whether he likes bananas over his Cheerios too: I can sing along to love songs and not be singing them to him too. My letters set me free. Or at least they are supposed to.” Lara Jean Song Covey left me wondering, does this dazzling depiction of not wanting to be in love anymore also distinctly demonstrate fragile nature of being in love?

Ms. Han, You and I are fellow authors. Am Life Flashes: A Memoir author. The book was written over 14 years in diary form under pen name Merrie H. Reagan.   Reading To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before found me playfully recalling childhood experiences that I did not mention in Life Flashes: A Memoir. I remembered as a young girl, with permission from Mom, pushing a grocery cart down a grocery store aisle and then running after it, jumping on to it, and going for a ride. Whee!

I also recollected Reagan family members traveling one summer in 1960s from Boston to California and back within four to five weeks in a Volkswagen Bus; while traveling in the van for a good part of the day for several weeks, any of four Reagan kids, excepting baby Valerie, was heard repeatedly asked Mom and Dad, “Can we go to a motel with a pool tonight?”

I burst out smiling with pure joy when reading first love letter Lara Jean wrote stating, “Dear Kenny, It’s the last day of camp and possibly the last time I will ever see you because we live so far apart. Remember the second day, I was scared to do archery, and you made a joke about minnows, and it was so funny I nearly wet my pants?” Jenny Han, you wrote that then for a moment, Lara Jean stopped reading the letter and reflected, “A joke about minnows? How funny could that be?”

The remainder of the letter impeccably combines inspiration and drama, as Lara Jean says that she was really homesick when she was at camp, but Kenny repeatedly encouraged her. “I might have left camp, if it hadn’t been for you Kenny. So, thank you.  Also, you are a really amazing swimmer and I like your laugh.”  Lara Jean parting written words with Kenny were, “I wish you had kissed me at the bonfire last night and not Blaire F.”