Review The Summer I Turned Pretty- Jenny Han

The Summer I Turned Pretty –Jenny Han

“Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.” ( Good Reads)

I have to start off by saying that I absolutely adored this book. This is a series that never would have touched. I guess I have to thank the ladies at ieatwords for making me interesting in reading this book. This is a book that I would never have picked up simply because I used to feel like the summer romance books were a dime a dozen. There are so many of them out there, and lets face it, I need more lead up and relationship time for a genuine romance to start up between my couple before the summer is over and the school year begins again. And I don’t want an ending where the summer obviously comes to a close and the couple decides that it was better to have love and lost than to never have loved at all…yeah, garbage. We also don’t want one of the people to randomly move to attend high school with the other person. Can we say creeper?

But this book is different because Jenny Han gets around that (at least for me) because Isabel (Belly), the female protagonist goes to the same beach house (Cousins) to stay with her mother’s best friend. The mother’s best friend, Susannah happens to have two sons named Conrad and Jeremiah. Right from the start of the novel it is made clear that Susannah wants Belly to fall in love and marry one of her sons. I am such a sucker for crap like that.

The only thing that got a little confusing was how the book was laid out. The chapters go back and forth between the actual summer and past summers from when she was younger. So, if you have to walk away for the book for any amount of time it’s difficult to tell if it is the present summer that she is recalling a memory from. The reason for this is because Belly does have these little annoying qualities (and thank God) that she is only starting to grow up from. For one, she is really insecure and has an awkward time because of how she is changing and maturing. Also, she has to fight the urge to not stick her tongue out at the boys or tattle on them. She was kept apart from when her brother, Steve, would hang out with Conrad and Jeremiah so where does she belong now? These little flashbacks do help get background information about the characters personalities and also help explain why summer is such a special time.

This book is the ultimate summer time book. It does encompass what a lot of people think about the summer months even if you don’t have a fancy beach house to spend the summer at. I think that a lot of people will be able to relate towards this book at the same time. It helps that Belly is a great character. Trust me, this isn’t just a book that deals with who some girl is going to date. It’s much more than that. Who didn’t have that that awkward time when you invited a friend with you on vacation and you just…wish you didn’t? Only me? Right. Anyway, this book is about a lot more than who will Belly chose to be with. I even get the feeling that she won’t be with either one by the end of the third book, but who knows. I loved Conrad and Jeremiah for different reasons and I also loved Cam. I love how it even captures those bittersweet feelings of things coming to an end towards the end of the novel.

I checked this book out from the library and cannot wait to get my hands on the next two because I want to read while were still in the summer months. Get your hands on a copy of this book now!