Must Read: 'The Summer I Turned Pretty'

Hi guys, 

This is the first book I’ve read in a while, and thought I’d review it. 

So here we go, ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ is a fictional romance novel written by Jenny Han. You may know her as her book ‘To All the Boys..’ was turned into a hit Netflix movie; staring Noah Centineo and Lana Condor. 

I digress, but ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ follows the same plot line the way ‘To All the Boys’ does. The main protagonist called Isabel aka (Belly) is head over heels in love with Conrad who is the son her mother’s friend. 

Every summer, Belly and her brother go to ‘Cousins’ a holiday resort and stay with Susanna and her sons (Conrad and Jeremiah). 

During their summer breaks , Steven and Conrad have always made fun of Belly through brotherly banter as she is a couple of years younger than them. However, Jeremiah who is the same age as Belly has treated her as his equal. 

The storyline focuses on Belly owing up to her crush on Conrad and looks at how she has built up a wall to deal with it. This book also focuses on how Belly grows up and develops a sense of realisation. This occurs as all the boys at the house make fun of her, however when she is outside of the summer house, boys begin to notice her; therefore her confidence and self-esteem grows from this. 

While the book has a lot of elements of romance in it, this book also deals with issues of  death and grief. I felt like this really wasn’t touched on a lot, only towards the end of the book. Personally, I feel like it could’ve been dealt with better as I believe the stereotypical emotions took place in this book. If you want to find out what these emotions were, you'll discover what these emotions are as you read the book, since I don't want to give much away. 

In my opinion, I believe the book was my cup of tea as I love books about romance; however I did find it a bit slow and annoying as Belly is confronted with overwhelming situations that she finds difficult to deal with at her young age. I might even read the sequels as the story doesn’t feel as though it has finished yet. I'm sure the plot will get better as the story picks up. 

xNx