Lara Jean is a quiet, shy, and smart biracial teenager entering her junior year of high school. She is committed to her family and loves to bake to express her fondness for people. She also secretly writes love letters to the boys she’s had intense crushes on. At the start of the novel, Lara Jean has never had a boyfriend, in part because she’s hung up on her feelings for her friend and neighbor Josh, who is also her sister’s boyfriend. Lara Jean makes herself smaller in her friendship with Josh in order not to get too overwhelmed by her feelings. When her sister breaks up with Josh and moves to Scotland, Lara Jean has the opportunity to re-establish her friendship with Josh without her sister in the picture, but Lara Jean is a sensitive and thoughtful person, especially when it comes to her sisters, so Margot is never far from her mind when she’s with Josh.

Lara Jean projects her desires for friendship and love onto Josh, because she doesn’t have many friends and spends most of her weekends at home hanging out with her little sister. When her secret love letters are released into the world and the boys she used to love start approaching her about her feelings, Lara Jean must navigate her real feelings, her fantasies, and her anxieties.