Introduction
The Summer I Turned Pretty, written by Jenny Han, was published in 2009 by Simon and Schuster publishing company. This book series was another one recommended to me by my friend Ciara, and I decided to review it in April as a lead up to summer vacation. It was also a book I was already interested in as my mom and I had just finished season one of the tv show the summer before, and I also really enjoyed the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movies on Netflix, another Jenny Han adaptation. Of course, I ended up really enjoying this book, and I am very excited to read the second one this upcoming week. If you haven’t read this series yet, I would at least pick up a copy of the first book before continuing with this review. If you want a general overview, the Plot section is spoiler-free. If you want to read my actual review, please remember that my Thoughts section does contain spoilers.
If you want to learn more about Jenny Han, follow her on her social media @jennyhan and check out her website https://www.jennyhan.com.
Plot
The Summer I Turned Pretty is told from a first-person perspective and takes place over the summer. We experience our narrator, Belly’s, summer at Cousins Beach, where she has been vacationing every summer for her entire life. This year, things are different: she’s finally grown up, and the boys at Cousins are starting to notice. She only has her eye on one boy though, Conrad Fisher, the one she’s loved for years. Through flashbacks we see how she spent various summers on the beach leading up to this point, and in the present, we see her develop her relationships in a whole new way.
Thoughts
One of the first things I note when I read a new book - especially one by an author I haven’t read yet - is the writing style. This book is told in a very “breezy” way, which is to say it’s mostly lighthearted and easy to read. While it does have some depth to it, there wasn’t much that caught me by surprise. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it - quite the contrary, I found it to be a very comfortable read - it just wasn’t one I had to think too hard on while I read it. It makes for a great relaxation book. It helped that the chapters varied in length with most of them being very short. I don’t love long chapters in books, and this one did a great job of holding my attention with the constant shifts in time.
This book is more of a classic romance, which can be as comfortable as it is predictable, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call it boring. In the end, what I ended up making particular notes of in this book were the themes.
One of the more obvious themes in this book was that of change. Obviously, Belly, Steven, Jeremiah, and Conrad have faced some major external upheaval with their parent’s divorces and Susannah being sick, but I was more interested in their personal changes. Belly carries herself differently in the present scenes than she does in the past because she’s begun to grow up and see herself as beautiful. Her relationships with the Fisher boys have obviously shifted as they’ve all grown as well. Now they have an attraction to her where they used to view her more as family.
The next theme I wanted to touch on was friendship. Clearly, all of the kids are friends, but I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of Laurel and Susannah’s friendship. They were the definition of “if friends could be soulmates.” To have someone in your life who is there for you through thick and thin, who loves you unconditionally, and who you know you could have in your corner and by your side for the rest of your life is truly something special. This was especially clear to me when I contrasted it with Belly’s friendship with Taylor, it was just very different, and the two of them didn’t seem nearly as compatible together as Laurel and Susannah.
On the subject of relationships, I found the different family dynamics to be very interesting. It’s obvious that Belly is closer with Susannah than she is with her own mom, which I thought was a very intriguing thing to include. Familial relationships can be tricky to portray in general, but to have something like this where Belly still had a well balanced relationship with her mom and her mom’s best friend was refreshing. It didn’t cause drama between Susannah and Laurel, and it was still made clear that Laurel cared, just in a more quiet, subtle way. I always appreciate a well-written sibling relationship too. I thought Belly and Steven were particularly well done, and I enjoyed that though they were constantly taking petty digs at one another, they were supportive when it counted - even if the support was secretive.
Overall, this book gets an 8/10 from me. I really enjoyed the themes, and it was a relaxing and easy book for me to get through, but the plot could be relatively predictable at times. It is the perfect poolside summer read, and I look forward to the next few installments.
Comments