The Summer I Turned Pretty

What's inside (8 sections)

1. The house at Cousins and how Belly fits in it
2. Conrad has gone quiet and Jeremiah has not
3. Cam, Taylor, Shayla, and the normal teen summer stuff
4. The Fourth of July, the ball, and things said out loud
5. What holds up and what bothered me
6. Who should read it and how it sets up book two
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I came to The Summer I Turned Pretty sideways. I had read To All the Boys I have Loved Before first and liked how Jenny Han writes sisters and mothers and boys who are kind of a mess in a believable way. Then the Prime Video show kept popping up, friends kept arguing about Conrad versus Jeremiah like it was a real family debate, and I got curious about where Belly started on the page. First published in 2009 by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, this is the first book in the trilogy, the one where Isabel Conklin, called Belly almost all the time, is fifteen going on sixteen and convinced this Cousins summer will be different.

And it is different, though not in the glossy way the title might suggest. Belly has measured her life in summers forever. School year Belly is the younger sister, the tagalong, the girl with glasses and baby fat and a crush nobody takes seriously. Summer Belly gets to live in Susannah Fisher's beach house in Cousins Beach, share a room with her mom Laurel, fight with her older brother Steven over the bathroom, eat corn on the cob on the deck, and orbit around Susannah's two sons. Conrad, the older one, dark and closed off, the boy she has loved since she was ten. Jeremiah, the younger one, sunny and physical and funny, the boy who has always actually paid attention to her.

This time she shows up and people notice her. Her hair is longer. She grew taller over the winter. Contacts instead of glasses. She can feel Conrad looking and then looking away. That small shift fuels almost everything that follows.

What I did not expect was how sad the book feels under the sunscreen. The mothers carry it. Laurel Conklin and Susannah Fisher have been best friends since college, opposites who stuck. Laurel is sharp, practical, a little prickly, recently separated from Belly's dad and trying to hold a line about work and independence. Susannah is warmth itself, the mom who remembers your favorite cereal and lets the kids stay up late and keeps the house full of light. Susannah had breast cancer before and everyone thought she was clear. She is not clear. She is sick again and has not told the boys yet. The adults know, or half know, and the kids feel something is off without having words for it. That unspoken thing explains so much of Conrad's behavior, and Han lets you sit in the discomfort of not knowing for a long while.

If you only know the show, the book is quieter and tighter. Almost everything happens in or around that one house, the beach, the pool, the country club, a bonfire, a Fourth of July party. It reads fast, present tense mixed with flashback chapters to earlier summers when Belly was twelve and thirteen, still round cheeked and desperate to be included in poker games and late drives for ice cream.

The house at Cousins and how Belly fits in it

Cousins Beach works as a character here, not just a backdrop. Han spends real time on the details that make a summer house feel borrowed and permanent at once. The outdoor shower that is always a little cold at first. The screened porch with wet towels. The kitchen where Susannah cooks big breakfasts and Laurel drinks coffee and reads manuscripts. The pool where Jeremiah does cannonballs and Steven tries to look cool for whoever is visiting. The beach path Belly could walk blind.

Belly and Steven share the usual sibling static. Steven is seventeen, headed toward college worries, working at the snack stand or the country club scene depending on the week, flashing money and teasing Belly about her crushes. He loves her in that older brother way that shows up as protection at parties and cruelty at breakfast. Their dad is mostly absent this summer, separated from Laurel, calling in, sending checks. Laurel is trying to be both parents and also herself, a woman who wants to write and work and not just be someone's wife or someone's summer guest.

Susannah runs the house on feeling. She decorates for the Fourth. She plans the annual family photos. She tells Belly she is beautiful in a way that lands because Susannah actually looks at her. She tells Conrad to be kinder without nagging. She tells Jeremiah to stop wrestling in the living room and then laughs when he does it anyway. You understand quickly why Belly loves her almost like a second mother, and why Laurel leans on her even when Laurel pretends she does not need anyone.

The flashbacks do a lot of work. One summer Belly is twelve and gets her period at the beach house and is mortified and Susannah helps her so gently it hurts to read now knowing Susannah is sick. Another summer she is thirteen and Conrad lets her sit next to him on the couch during a movie and she replays it for months. Another summer Jeremiah teaches her to drive the boat or lets her win at cards. These small memories stack until you feel the weight Belly carries into this summer. She is not just crushing on a cute boy. She is trying to graduate from childhood in front of the only audience that ever mattered to her.

A short note on pacing here. The first third is slow on purpose. Long days, little plot, a lot of watching. If you want constant twists, you might fidget. I liked it because it made the later parties and fights hit harder. You know the deck chairs and who sits where, so when someone does not show up for dinner, it means something.

Conrad has gone quiet and Jeremiah has not

Conrad Fisher is eighteen that summer, just graduated, headed to Brown in the fall, working mornings as a lifeguard or at the club, smoking when he thinks no one sees, carrying himself like he wants to be left alone. Last summer he was warmer. He played guitar on the porch. He teased Belly without malice. This summer he barely talks at the table. He disappears with friends. He is short with Jeremiah. He looks at Belly a second too long and then goes cold.

Jeremiah is sixteen, a year older than Belly, golden in that easy athletic way, always moving. He surfs, he swims, he jokes, he hugs. He notices Belly's new haircut right away and says so. He invites her to ride along for ice cream runs. He defends her when Steven teases her. Where Conrad withholds, Jeremiah offers. Han does not make this subtle, and she does not need to. You feel pulled both ways right along with Belly.

Part of what makes the love triangle work is that it is not really equal at the start. Belly has loved Conrad for years in that fixed, private way kids love someone. She kept count of summers by Conrad moments. A look during fireworks. A shared towel. Him teaching her to dance in the kitchen when she was small. Jeremiah was safety, the buddy, the boy who would play chicken in the pool with her while Conrad read on a chair. This summer Jeremiah starts looking at her differently, and that scrambles her system. Being wanted by the person who always liked you is disorienting when you built your identity around wanting someone else.

Han writes the boys with specific habits instead of just labels. Conrad rubs the back of his neck when he is cornered. He leaves rooms instead of arguing. He remembers small things Belly told him years ago and drops them casually, which wrecks her. Jeremiah talks with his hands. He eats standing up. He says sorry fast and means it. He gets jealous and tries to joke through it and fails. Steven, for his part, watches all of this with older brother radar, warning Belly off both Fishers in his own clumsy way because he knows they can hurt her.

My gripe with this section, and it stayed through the book, is that Conrad's moodiness sometimes gets treated as depth by Belly in a way that grated on me. She excuses cold behavior because she is convinced there must be a tender reason underneath. Sometimes there is. Sometimes a boy is just being rude at dinner. Han knows this, I think, and lets Laurel and Steven call it out, but Belly at fifteen does not have the distance yet. Readers who have lived through that kind of crush will recognize it. Readers who have no patience for brooding heroes may want to shake her.

Cam, Taylor, Shayla, and the normal teen summer stuff

To break the Fisher gravity, Han gives Belly a separate orbit. At a beach bonfire early in the summer she meets Cam Cameron, a boy her age who is sweet, nerdy in a normal way, into marine stuff and school, no family baggage attached to Cousins. He likes her right away and is clear about it. He asks her out properly. He remembers what she says. He does not play games.

Belly likes him. She really does. And she also uses him a little, which the book is honest about. Dating Cam feels like proof she is pretty now, proof she can be chosen outside the Fisher house. She brings him to the country club. She kisses him at the bonfire and at the movies and feels proud walking next to him. Then she compares every quiet moment with Cam to every charged moment with Conrad and feels guilty and restless.

Taylor Jewel, Belly's school friend, comes to visit and brings outside eyes. Taylor is blunt, boy focused, a little competitive, the friend who will tell Belly her bathing suit looks good and also tell her she is being dumb about Conrad in the same breath. Shayla, Steven's summer girlfriend, hangs around the house, confident and older feeling, good at makeup and small talk. The group goes to parties, plays truth games, drinks a little, sneaks out a little. Conrad shows up sometimes and ruins Belly's good mood just by standing in a doorway. Jeremiah shows up and lightens it.

There is a party scene that stuck with me. Loud music, sticky floors, someone's older brother buying beer, Belly in a dress she stressed over for an hour. Cam is attentive. Conrad is there with a girl from town and barely looks at Belly, then looks too much. Jeremiah gets drunk and goofy and affectionate and tells Belly she looks nice in a way that sounds more serious than he meant. Belly ends up outside for air, caught between feeling fifteen and wanting to feel twenty. Han captures that specific summer party feeling where everything is fun and a little unsafe and you go home smelling like smoke and replay one glance for hours.

Cam deserves better than he gets, and to Han's credit, she does not villainize him to clear the path for a Fisher. He is patient until he should not have to be. When Belly cancels or goes distant or lights up when Conrad enters a room, Cam notices. Their breakup is awkward and sad and mostly fair. He tells her she is still hung up on someone else. She does not deny it well enough. I felt for him. He was the healthy option at the wrong time for a girl who was not ready to choose health.

If the middle sags at all, it is here. A couple of beach days and club afternoons blur together. Belly worries, Conrad broods, Jeremiah jokes, Steven shows off, repeat. I skimmed two or three pages around the sailing and shopping stretches. The rhythm picks up again once the Fourth of July plans lock in, but a tighter edit could have trimmed ten pages without losing anything.

The Fourth of July, the ball, and things said out loud

Cousins does the Fourth big. Parade in town, cookout at the house, fireworks over the water. Susannah loves it and pushes everyone to dress up and show up even when she is tired in a way she tries to hide. Laurel watches her friend with worried eyes. The kids sense the adults whispering and pretend not to.

That night cracks things open. Conrad has been drinking and fighting with Jeremiah about nothing and everything. Belly wears a dress Susannah helped pick. There is dancing, sparklers, heat. Conrad pulls Belly aside at one point and is tender in a way he has not been all summer, then pulls back hard like he scared himself. Jeremiah sees enough to understand his own feelings better. Belly goes to bed confused and hopeful and angry all at once.

After that, Han raises the stakes with the debutante ball storyline. Susannah has always dreamed of Belly being presented at the Cousins debutante ball, white dress and gloves and all. Laurel thinks it is outdated and sexist and a waste of money, which it kind of is, and Belly is torn between wanting to please Susannah and agreeing with her mom. She says yes mostly for Susannah. Learning the dances, going to teas, standing next to girls she does not know while Taylor coaches her over the phone, it gives Belly a separate project from boys for a stretch, and I liked watching her care about something girly and traditional without irony. She wants to feel elegant. She wants Susannah to see her in that dress.

The ball night itself is one of the best set pieces. Hair done, dress zipped, Susannah crying happy tears, Laurel softening despite herself, Steven actually telling his sister she looks good without a joke attached. Conrad shows up late and looks stunned in a way he cannot cover. Jeremiah is her escort of sorts and is proud and goofy and sweet. Belly dances, smiles for photos, feels grown for an hour. Then a blowup back at the house after, harsh words between Conrad and Jeremiah, Susannah exhausted, Laurel furious at the waste of a lovely night. Joy and damage in the same evening, which feels true to family summers.

Around this time the truth about Susannah comes out to the boys. She has cancer again and it is serious. She did not want to ruin the summer. Laurel knew and kept it quiet out of loyalty, which causes its own fight about honesty and protection. Conrad already suspected or knew more than he let on, which reframes his distance. He was not just being a moody teen headed to college. He was carrying fear about his mom and handling it by shutting down. It does not excuse every cold shoulder, but it explains the shape of his grief. Jeremiah reacts by clinging harder to fun, then crashing. Belly reacts by feeling guilty for obsessing over dresses and kisses while Susannah was suffering in the next room.

The kisses matter here, so let me lay them out without melodrama. Belly and Conrad share charged moments that stop and start. He tells her in his tangled way that he thinks about her, then tells her they cannot do this, then looks at her like he wants to undo what he just said. Belly and Jeremiah get closer too, late night talks on the porch, a kiss that surprises both of them because it feels easy and warm instead of fraught. Belly does not handle it well. She cries. She avoids. She tells Taylor half truths. She is fifteen and in over her head with two brothers who are also drowning in family fear. Han lets her be messy without making her cruel.

What holds up and what bothered me

The strongest part for me is voice and memory. Belly narrates in present tense with flash cuts to past summers, and the shifts feel natural, like how you actually remember a place. A smell of coconut sunscreen pulls a scene from when she was eleven. A song on the radio pulls Conrad at sixteen teaching her cards. Han trusts small objects too. A necklace Conrad gave Belly years ago that she never takes off until it means something different. An old T shirt of Jeremiah she sleeps in. A chipped mug Susannah always uses. These beat big speeches.

The mothers are the second strength. Laurel could have been the strict killjoy mom who hates fun. Instead she is principled and tired and funny in a dry way, trying to separate from her husband, trying to respect Susannah's choices while disagreeing about hiding illness. Susannah could have been pure saint. Instead she is loving and a little controlling about tradition, determined to have one perfect summer even if pretending costs people. Their friendship feels adult and long, full of shorthand and old jokes and friction they do not explain to the kids. I believed they met at nineteen and stayed close for twenty years.

Now the fair criticism. Belly's narration can loop. She circles the same question for pages. Does Conrad like me. Why did Conrad look at me. What did that touch mean. Does Jeremiah like me more. Am I pretty now. I understand a fifteen year old would loop exactly like that, and Han is being faithful, but fidelity can still tire a reader. About two thirds in I wanted someone to hand Belly a glass of water and tell her to go to sleep. The repetition eases once Susannah's illness is open and the stakes widen beyond crushes, but getting there takes patience.

Conrad as a love interest will divide people. If you need verbal apology and clear communication to enjoy romance, you will struggle. He communicates by leaving, by smoking on the porch, by showing up late with a look. Han gives him interiority through action rather than confession, and Belly fills the gaps with hope. Some readers will find that romantic. Others will find it a warning sign. I landed in the middle. I believed a scared eighteen year old facing his mom's cancer might shut down and push a girl away to protect himself. I also thought Belly deserved clearer kindness than she got at several points, and I was glad Jeremiah and Laurel said so out loud.

A smaller note on age fit. This is clean young adult with kissing, some drinking at parties, mild language, talk of sex but no explicit scenes. Belly is fifteen for most of it, which makes the love triangle feel age right and also a little uncomfortable when older teen boys drink and drive or get possessive. Han does not glamorize the risky parts much, and Laurel calls out bad behavior, but parents of younger teens should know the party content is present. Ideal around thirteen and up, and satisfying for adults who like coming of age romance anchored by family.

One more craft point. The flashback structure sometimes blurs time. Chapters jump from now to age twelve to now to age fourteen without huge signposts. I adjusted after a while and started liking the drift, but twice I had to flip back to check how old Belly was in a memory. Dates or age tags at chapter starts would have helped. Minor, but worth saying.

Who should read it and how it sets up book two

Read this if you like beach summers, first love, mothers and daughters, brothers who fight and still share fries. Read it if you watched the show and want Belly's interior voice, which is funnier and more insecure than on screen, and if you want more Laurel and Susannah, who get richer pages here than I expected. Do not read it expecting steam or a tidy choice at the end. Han ends on a hinge, not a door shut. Belly learns Susannah is sick, learns Conrad knew and carried it alone, learns Jeremiah's easy grin covers hurt too. She leaves Cousins older, still unsure which Fisher, if either, is right, but surer about herself and about showing up for Susannah.

Edition details help set expectations. My notes follow the standard Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover, listed at 276 pages with ISBN 9781416968238, first released in 2009. Later paperbacks and tie in editions paginate differently but carry the same text. The series continues with It is Not Summer Without You and We will Always Have Summer, where Susannah's illness and the brothers' fallout move to the front.

I closed it thinking about Susannah more than the kiss. About a woman trying to stage one more perfect summer while her body fails her. About Laurel holding her friend's secret and hating it. About Belly realizing pretty was never the point, attention was, and attention from boys is thin food compared to being truly seen by family. Then I still caught myself wondering who she will choose, which tells you Han did her job. The romance hooks you. The family keeps you.

If you pick it up, give it fifty pages past the slow start. Let Cousins settle around you. Keep an eye on Conrad's silences and Jeremiah's jokes, they both tell the truth sideways. And pay attention to Susannah in every kitchen scene. She is the center this whole book orbits, even when Belly thinks it orbits her.

FAQ

Is The Summer I Turned Pretty the first book in a series?

Yes, it is book one of three in The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, followed by It's Not Summer Without You and We'll Always Have Summer.

Who does Belly choose between Conrad and Jeremiah in this book?

She does not make a final choice here. She ends things with Cam Cameron, shares charged moments with both brothers, and leaves Cousins still torn after Susannah's illness comes out.

What age is this book appropriate for?

It fits readers around thirteen and up. There is kissing, party drinking, mild language, and talk of sex, but no explicit scenes.