With the release of XO, Kitty Season 3, I’ve been thinking about what makes the Jenny Han universe so ridiculously bingeable in the first place. On paper, her stories are full of the things people love to dismiss about girlhood: crushes, emotional spirals, friendship drama, and the general chaos of being young and a little bit delusional. In other words, everything that tends to get labeled as “too much.” But I’ve realized that’s exactly what Jenny Han gets so right. She doesn’t write girlhood like it’s something embarrassing to laugh off or grow out of. She unapologetically writes it like it matters, which is probably why so many viewers keep coming back.
One of the things Jenny Han gets so right is just how intense everything feels when you’re younger. Growing up, Lara Jean felt painfully relatable in a way that was almost a little too exposing. The overthinking, the daydreaming, the reading into every tiny interaction like it might secretly mean something bigger felt very familiar. I think that’s why To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before resonated with so many people. It understood that when you’re a teenage girl, even the smallest things can feel huge. A crush can take over your entire brain, friendship drama can feel genuinely life-altering, and wanting to be chosen can suddenly seem like the most important thing in the world. Jenny Han never makes those feelings seem silly, which is probably why her characters have always felt so easy to connect to.
What’s more, Han never treats femininity like something shallow. Growing up, so many of the things girls loved were always the first to be mocked, whether that was romance, being sentimental, caring too much about aesthetics, or making entire playlists for one very specific mood. But Jenny Han’s stories never make those things feel silly. If anything, she makes them feel meaningful. In her world, love letters, summer memories, crushes, dresses, and all the little rituals that come with growing up are not just cute details thrown in for decoration. They’re part of how girls understand themselves and the people around them, and that’s undeniably why her stories feel so comforting. They remind you that softness, nostalgia, and even a slightly embarrassing level of sentimentality are not signs of being shallow. They are often just part of caring deeply.
Undoubtedly, Jenny Han is especially good at writing longing, which is probably why her stories stay with people for so long. So much of girlhood is tied up in wanting. Wanting to be noticed, wanting to grow up, wanting to be loved a little differently, or wanting your life to finally feel like the version you have built up in your head. The Summer I Turned Pretty captures that perfectly. Belly spends so much of the story caught between wanting things to change and wanting everything to stay exactly the same, which feels painfully familiar. But it’s not just Belly. Even Laurel and Susannah’s relationship carries that same sense of nostalgia and quiet sadness, like they’re both holding onto something they already know cannot last forever. Jenny Han understands that girlhood is often shaped just as much by what you hope for and imagine as by what actually happens.
To me though, Jenny Han’s work has had such a lasting impact because it taps into a version of girlhood that people still love to roll their eyes at. Her stories are emotional, romantic, slightly cringey, and very sincere, which are all things culture usually treats as unserious. But clearly, they matter. You only have to look at the way The Summer I Turned Pretty has become an actual event every summer, from watch parties to Team Conrad versus Team Jeremiah (and Team Belly?) debates taking over the internet, in order to see that these stories mean something to people. And I honestly think that’s kind of the point. Jenny Han never writes girlhood like it needs to be cooler, tougher, or less embarrassing to deserve attention. She lets it stay awkward and dramatic and deeply felt. That’s what makes her work so validating. It does not apologize for centering girls, and that still feels surprisingly rare.
At the end of the day, Jenny Han gets girlhood because she understands that it’s rarely neat or rational. It’s intense, tender, embarrassing, beautiful, confusing, and occasionally powered almost entirely by overthinking. But that’s exactly what makes it so formative. Her stories don’t pretend girls are always effortless and emotionally detached, which is why they still resonate so much. Instead, they let girlhood be what it actually is: a little dramatic, a little cringe, and somehow still deeply meaningful. And maybe that’s why Jenny Han’s work lasts. She doesn’t just write girls well. She writes them like they are worth taking seriously.