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A review by booklistqueen
The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
2.0
Every summer, Belly and her brother Steven stay at a beach house owned by her mom's best friend Susannah. While Belly's mom and Susannah catch up, Belly tries to tag along with Steven and Susannah's boys, Conrad and Jeremiah, who are the brother figures and childhood crushes of her life. Now Belly is 16, the gap between her and the boys doesn't seem so wide and everything changes in this teenage summer drama.
With the adaptation of The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy into a tv show, I think (or hope) the series took the basic idea and refined it into something less shallow. While accurate to some 16-year-olds, Belly was the most immature character which didn't make for a delightful read. To make matters worse, I listened to the audiobook and struggled to keep everything straight since the narrative kept flashing back to previous summers. I also didn't get the appeal of the brooding Conrad and the entire book felt like a trainwreck.