The letters in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before get to the boys because someone secretly mails Lara Jean’s private love letters without her knowing.

Who wrote the letters?

Lara Jean Covey writes five intense, deeply personal love letters to each boy she’s had a serious crush on.

She never plans to send them; the letters are just her way to get closure and move on from those feelings.

How do the letters get sent?

At the start of the story, Lara Jean keeps all the letters in a special hatbox in her room.

That box mysteriously goes missing, and shortly after, each of the boys receives one of her letters in the mail.

In the book/film universe, it’s revealed that her younger sister is the one who secretly mails them, thinking she’s “helping” Lara Jean face her feelings. (This is treated as a plot twist and character drama point in the series.)

What happens after they’re mailed?

Once the letters go out, Lara Jean’s quiet life blows up overnight.

  • Boys she hasn’t spoken to in years suddenly confront her about her feelings.
  • Her sister’s ex-boyfriend finding out adds extra emotional tension at home.
  • To cope with the fallout, Lara Jean agrees to a fake relationship with one of the boys, which turns into real emotional growth and romance.

This “letters get mailed” moment is the entire trigger for the drama, romance, and character development across the trilogy.

Quick recap

  1. Lara Jean writes private love letters for closure , not to send.
  1. She stores them in a hatbox in her room.
  1. Someone close to her secretly mails them out.
  1. Each boy receives a letter, confronts her, and this chaos becomes the core story of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

In fan and forum discussions, when people ask “how do the letters get to the boys?”, they’re usually referring to this twist: they’re not accidentally sent by Lara Jean, but deliberately mailed by a family member, which forces her to deal with all those old crushes in real life.

Meta description (SEO-style):
Wondering how do the letters get to the boys in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before? Here’s a clear, spoiler-aware breakdown of who mailed them, why they were sent, and how that chaos drives the story.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.