Book Review: The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Published by Simon & Schuster BFYR
Publish Date: May 5, 2009
Pages: 276 Pages

Goodread reviews: 4/5 stars

The Summer I Turned Pretty is the first book of the Summer trilogy by Jenny Han. The story follows the summer of a 15-year-old girl named Belly who always spends her summer with her mother and brother in her mother’s best friend, Susannah, beach house. For her, summer is always the time when everything fun, magical and wonderful happens. Susannah has two boys named Conrad and Jeremiah, whom Belly has known since her first summer. Belly and the two brothers have always been tight. They grew a sibling-like friendship, along with her brother, Steven. Belly has always liked one of the brothers. As long as Belly knows, she has always had a crush on him and that’s part of the reason why she loves summer so much.  But then the other brother grew feelings for her and it turned out a little bit awkward. On top of that, something bigger, something life-changing is happening in this close-knit family friendship. This summer, something’s different. This one terrible yet wonderful summer, everything is going to change.

                This 276-pages long book easily became one of my favorite contemporary/young adult books. It was an easy read for me and I love every bit of it. It might strike you as ‘another summer love story’ but it is not. I can assure you that despite its main theme, the story is not all romance. Inside, there are stories about family, struggles, and friendship. Jenny Han is a really good writer when it comes to summer/contemporary stories and she never ever disappoints me. I really love her writing style because it is very light, it’s kind of a fast paced book and it makes you want to know more about the story. Not only that, she keeps all of her characters realistic yet relatable. What I mean by realistic is that her characters have flaws and imperfect. I personally don’t really like a ‘perfect character’, particularly the main character when it comes to books especially romance books. I think teenagers, who probably are the target audience of this book, can relate to this very well. I find it very easy to put myself in Belly shoes because at some point teenagers must have gone through that phase of confusion, anger, the feeling of being left out and frustration. 

                Another reason why I love this book so much is because instead of like reading a story of someone’s summer, Jenny Han makes it like we experienced it ourselves. It makes me devour this book deeper and deeper. I personally can’t stop reading this book. The first time I saw this book, I’ve never heard anything about it. But then I saw the author and it’s Jenny Han. Guess what? Now it’s become one of my favorite. As I said before, this book is definitely not just another sappy romance book. I felt a lot of things while reading this book. I feel happy, I fall in love with the characters, anger, frustration, upset, sad, everything. I have to admit, I shed a bit of tears by the end of the book. One of my favorite quotes of the book is “Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It’s like you see them through a special lens—but maybe if it’s how you see them, that’s how they really are. It’s like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.”. Because basically it is true.

                Last of all, I recommend this to anyone who’s about to start reading or a fan of contemporary/young Adult or romance books. I recommend this to every teenagers who’s going through some real problems or struggling on something or just trying to figure out themselves. Last, I recommend this to anyone who just wants to enjoy good books because I’m pretty sure you will. I personally would give this book 5 out of 5 stars.  Enjoy!

“Moments, when lost, can’t be found again. They’re just gone.”