The prime video show The Summer I Turned Pretty is a must-watch if you love coming-of-age stories with some teen romance. Jeeny Hen is the author and co-owner of the show and author of the series that inspired the show including The Summer I Turned Pretty, It’s Not Summer Without You and We’ll Always Have Summer. With the main characters being played by Lola Tung (Belly) Christopher Briney ( Conrad) Gavin Casalegno (Jeremiah) Sean Kaufman (Steven) Rachel Blanchard ( Susannah) and Jackie Chung (Laurel). This story takes place at Cousins Beach which was inspired by The Hamptons, Cape Cod, The Outer Banks, and Virgin Beach.
The name says it all, The Summer I Turned Pretty is about the main character’s belly coming out of her shell more and finally knowing who she is. Every summer Belly and her family go live at her mom’s best friend’s beach house with her sons. However this summer it’s different belly is now “pretty” She’s had her glow up and now boys are interested in her. Specifically Jeremiah and Conrad the sons of her mom’s best friend Susanna. Susanna helps Belly come out of her shell more by entering the debutante ball, but Belly isn’t sure who to take as her escort. Jeremiah escorts her because Conrad goes about the situation wrong even though he is the one who ends up dancing with her. She kisses both Jeremiah and Conrad but then she dates Jeremiah and then Conrad for a while before the next summer happens. Belly and Conrad broke up before the next summer started and that’s right before something hurtful happened to their families and they had to deal with a love triangle while also dealing with other relationships with parents and siblings.
The book did inspire the series but the events aren’t exactly as written in the book. Jenny Hag did change some things about the characters for Belly she changed her ethnicity from white to half-Korean and half-white to be able to show more Asian representation. Jeremiah’s sexuality was shown as fluid but in the books, he was seen as straight. In the books, the story is mostly about Belly and her emotions but in the series we get to see more of the other characters. They give us more about the relationships Belly has with her best friends, mom, and brother and also change how Belly originally wasn’t going to pursue Jeremiah.
What’s next for this story? Well, we just got the last episode last week for season two and they left us questioning what will happen next. I don’t think anyone knows for sure who will belly pick, either Conrad or Jeremiah. Other viewers find belly to be the problem because she’s constantly changing her mind and one of the guys gets hurt. So what do you think, are you team jelly or bond?