"The Summer I Turned Pretty," by Jenny Han (Summer #1)

Audience: Young Adult

Genre: Coming-of-Age/Contemporary Fiction/Romance

Overall Content Rating: Somewhat Unclean

Content Warnings

Adult Issues

Divorce

Crude Language

Multiple mentions of breasts

LGBTQ+ Topics

Mention of gayness

Romantic Content

Mentions of "bases"

Kissing

Severe Profane Language

S**t

Calling someone an s— word

Calling someone a d— word

God***m

Substance Use

Smoking (cigarettes & pot)

Drug mentions / dealing mentions (mentions crystal meth)

Alcohol Consumption (wine & beer)

Violence/Bloodshed

Fistfight with blood

Other

Talks about skinny dipping but it doesn't actually happen

Overall Review

This is one book that I heard a lot about from a lot of people. They've said it was great, said it was terrible, and honestly, I'm not sure it was either. It was just kinda... meh. At the beginning, it was a little bit hard for me to get into, and by the end, I wasn't entirely appreciative of the kinds of things the characters did.

I think the plot overall was a little bit... underwhelming. It was primarily about how everything came down to one summer, the first summer Isabel "Belly" was "pretty" in anyone's eyes. Not that she never was pretty, but that now she's drop-dead gorgeous in a more noticeable, almost sensual way.

It brings up her body a lot when it talks about beauty, but I know there's a lot about her attitude that was not pretty in the slightest. She honestly wasn't really appealing to me as a main character, mainly because she was very into backtalking, whining, tattling, throwing fits, etc. And while some of it was more minor, everything she did seemed very dramatized and it honestly just seemed ridiculous.

It also seemed very... corny. I'm not even sure if this one is a good or bad thing. Basically, the mom and the kids are "best friends" (at least the moms are; saying the kids are may be pushing it a little. That said, they're pretty close seeming most of the time.) and there's a whole dynamic with that. It's hard to summarize in a short paragraph because as with most relationships, there's a lot of pushing and pulling and fights and whatnot, but this seemed to just be a little cliche. Like of course everyone's friends, of course there's tension, let's add an overprotective brother dynamic in, too. Actually, let's make the friends overprotective brother figures too. It just seemed a little ridiculous.

Also... CAN BELLY NOT JUST LEAVE IT AT ROMANCING ONE BOY??? Why does she need to have all three at the same time?? Like I'm not sure what the definition of cheating is and I guess if you're not officially dating it's not cheating yet but like... can we not have this content in there? That's just a little aversive. I was honestly disgusted by how casually she took these relationships, how she played up how old she was to get with the boys, and ultimately how she went with society and what it seemed to say she should do.

Overall, I really don't get the hype about this book. It sounded great on the surface, but the more I read, the more I disliked it. If you want to talk about it more, feel free to comment below but I really don't think this book lived up to the hype.