Lia Horyczun ‘16
EE Staff Writer
Jenny Han’s book called The Summer I Turned Pretty was published by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in New York during 2009. Han, who has written numerous books, is the author of Shug, Fire With Fire, and Burn For Burn. The Summer I Turned Pretty , geared towards female audiences, is currently being turned into a television series and the author will be touring USA this year.
Taking place in the summer house at the beach, Belly Conklin finally turned 16. Her mother, Laura, is best friends with Susannah Fisher, and Susannah has two sons, Jeremiah and Conrad. Belly has known them since she had her first summer there, but this summer is not the same as any previous summers. Belly is changing in many ways. Belly’s love for Conrad grows stronger and her friendship with Jeremiah is binding them together.
“Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was. I was.” Belly’s summer is full of love, friendship, and the coming of age.
Han uses life-like characters to help the reader feel what each is going through. The Summer I Turned Pretty is also part of a series and the first book and the third book, We’ll Always Have Summer are the strongest, but the second book, It’s Not Summer Without You is not weak. It’s just predictable. This book receives a 9 out of 10 stars because of Jenny Han ability to shows romance in The Summer trilogy.
I just recently finsihed reading all three books in the series and I was excited to hear that they’re coming out with a TV show. I like how the author mentioned the other books that Jenny Han wrote as I did not know there were others. I’m excited to read other books by her and am counting down the days until the TV premier!