The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han follows Belly durning her summer at Cousins Beach. Belly is in love with Conrad. She always has been and she’s pretty sure she always will be. But he doesn’t her like that. Or at least he didn’t until this summer. Everything is different, this summer she’s going to do things, like trying to get Conrad. But there’s Jeremiah, Conrads brother and her best friend, and he’s looking at her different and he just might like her. And then there’s Susannah the boys mother and her second mom. Belly has always loved spending time at the summer house and at Cousins with all her friends. In The Summer I Turned Pretty we follow Belly through the summer and look at past summers all while watching the love triangle of Jeremiah, Conrad, and Belly unfold.
I gave this book 2 stars. I wasn’t a fan of the way it was written. It was past tense as if the story was being told to a child while looking back on memories. That just didn’t work for me because I prefer my books to be in present first person. It was a hangup I just couldn’t get past while reading. I also feel like it was so fast paced that nothing really happened, and I found myself questioning how we got to a certain point. While I think this book does a good job of addressing issues such as grief and growing up I don’t feel like there is enough character development for me to be connected to any of the characters by the end of the first book. This book is part of a trilogy so I think that if you get though this book the other two are much better and this book is a super fast read.