58 pages • 1 hour read
Jenny HanAlways and Forever, Lara Jean
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Kitty and Lara Jean consider what their family dynamic would be if their father and Trina had a baby together. Kitty worries she wouldn’t be the youngest anymore and refers to Lara Jean as the prettiest; Lara Jean says there’s no way Kitty would be “nothing” as she’s the “wild Song girl. The mean one. The spiky one” (236). Kitty takes back her statement about Lara Jean being the prettiest and renames her the nicest. Lara Jean quietly continues to contemplate her father with a new baby.
The next morning, Lara Jean criticizes Peter’s lack of a beard, calling him a boy because he doesn’t do his own laundry or make lunches. She asks what he’d do if she got pregnant, and when he says that would be her decision, she feels happy. When he says “sure” he’d marry her, she calls him a boy again, and he retaliates that he would never want to be like his own father. The conversation picks back up after school, and Lara Jean reassures Peter that she doesn’t want to marry or have babies right now—but that they’d be safe because her dad gave her a birth-control kit. The discussion veers into their future plans, and Lara Jean finds herself pining for someone she may never know.
Chapter 18 Summary
Trina puts her house on the market, and it sells almost immediately, so she moves into Lara Jean’s house earlier than expected. Trina has a lot of things; Chris stops by while the movers are working and points out that she wouldn’t want to move into another woman’s home, i.e. Lara Jean’s mother. Lara Jean says she and Margot picked out most of the house’s design details anyway, and that they’re getting a new bed. Chris tries to bring up the topic of sex, but it makes Lara Jean uncomfortable. Chris is not planning to go to prom and will be leaving for Costa Rica in the summer.
After Chris leaves for work, Lara Jean’s father and Trina come in arguing about her treadmill; Lara Jean is seeing a new side of her father, and she thinks that’s a good thing. She enjoys her father’s happiness with Trina.
Chapter 19 Summary
Kitty and Lara Jean go to a lacrosse game together. They sit with Peter’s mom and little brother, Owen. Kitty and Owen act like they don’t know each other, while Lara Jean chats to Peter’s mother about her father’s upcoming wedding. Peter’s mom congratulates Lara Jean on getting into William and Mary, implying it “might be for the best” (254) that she’s not going to UVA. This confuses Lara Jean, who wonders if Peter’s mom doesn’t want them to attend the same school; she reassures Peter’s mom that they intend to stay together regardless. When Kitty and Lara Jean head for the snack bar, Lara Jean sees Peter’s father and approaches him. They've never met, so Lara Jean introduces herself as Peter’s girlfriend; they talk about Peter, and then his father asks her not to tell him he was there. Lara Jean wishes she hadn’t agreed to keep a secret from Peter. After, Kitty comments on Peter’s mom saying it might be a good thing she didn’t get into UVA. Lara Jean says she thinks his mom “just doesn’t want to see Peter get hurt, that’s all” (257-58).
Peter comes over, and the two put on sheet masks. Lara Jean tells him what his mom said, and he reassures her that his mom is just being an optimist, comparing her to Lara Jean. Lara Jean disagrees, but she keeps it to herself. Lara Jean tries to convince Peter to invite his father to graduation but backs off. The pair watch Amélie and Peter loves it. He requests a plum cake and wants to be there to taste test it.
Chapter 20 Summary
Lara Jean’s father walks in while she and Trina are discussing wedding plans. Trina wants their first song to be by Shania Twain. Lara Jean isn’t sure at first how well that represents her father, but when she sees how happy he is dancing to it with Trina, she recognizes its worth to him. She starts talking about expensive baked goods and a live band, and her dad expresses some concern that she’s replaced baking with wedding planning as a stress reliever. He and Trina reiterate that they’re not fussy on the details, and they would rather see her enjoying her senior year of high school. They allow her to help with the dresses and cakes but ask that she leave the rest to them. Upstairs, Lara Jean finds a prom dress online and pays her deposit for William and Mary.
Later in the week, Lara Jean cancels plans with Peter to go see the band, and she laments that they don’t have a song. They try to find one on the radio, but it sounds cheesy, so they agree they’ll know it when they hear it. Peter asks for the color of Lara Jean’s dress, which she describes as “dusty pink,” so he can get her a corsage; she requests he get one for Kitty as well.
Chapters 17-20 Analysis
When Lara Jean’s family confronts her on her obsession with the wedding plans, she must dial them down in favor of savoring her moments as a high school senior. This redirection of her time and energy culminates in ordering a prom dress online, paying her deposit for William and Mary, and cancelling plans to see a live band with Peter that she had hoped to hire for the wedding. This situation very clearly mimics the intervention from her father on her obsessive cookie baking behavior from the first chapters in the text, uncovering and seemingly proving that under stress, Lara Jean turns to home economics for comfort.
Lara Jean is also confronted by another parental figure in Chapter 19, this time by Peter’s mother at a lacrosse game. The notion that Peter’s mother did not encourage their pursuit of a relationship past high school was already something Peter had hinted at, but now his mother is directly addressing it in front of Lara Jean, by saying that maybe it is for the best that she won’t be going to UVA in the fall. Lara Jean denies the implication when Kitty brings it up afterward, but then discusses it with Peter, concluding despite his optimism that his mother would prefer to see them break up before Peter dedicates himself to lacrosse at a university level. While her concerns may be justified, it is ultimately not her decision to make. Many high schoolers deal with overbearing parents, particularly in the departments of matchmaking and family planning.
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