Audiobook Review | The Summer I Turned Pretty

I decided I needed something a bit feel good and figured this would fit the bill.

The Summer I Turned Pretty
Jenny Han

Some summers are just destined to be pretty.

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 wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

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Usually, if I know a TV show or film is based on a book I will try and read the book before watching, but on this occasion I had watched the TV show, then came across the audiobook and was curious to see how much the book differed. I did find this an enjoyable easy-going read but I actually think the TV show is better (I feel like I can hear audible gasps after that admission).

I think my main reason for this is because I found Belly a lot more difficult to get on with in the book, I could appreciate that she is a teenager and would have some moments which I could have understood but I felt like she was very self-centered and a bit overdramatic for a lot of the book. I wasn’t expecting that at all because it feels very different to the portrayal in the show and I found this a little jarring.

I also feel like there wasn’t much past the surface level with most of the characters, which is a shame because this book relies on the relationships between the characters to propel it along as there isn’t much in the way of a plot. It is mostly following Belly through her experiences of the summer and getting to watch her fall in and out of love with Conrad and flirt with other people in the hopes that it might make him jealous.

The chapters were quite short which made it feel like I was flying through the story but a quirk of listening to this as an audiobook is that at first, I didn’t realise that some of them were from previous summers and I did get a little confused in the timeline. It got a little easier the further I got into the story but there were still a few moments that made me question if I was still in the most recent summer.

There were three saving graces of this book for me, the first is the setting, I loved hearing about the beach house and the boardwalk. I could feel the hazy summer vibe through the words and even with it not quite matching my expectations in some respects, I was glad that I still felt transported to Cousins. The second is Susannah, she was still the wonderfully light and warm character that I was expecting, and although not quite as prominent, she still managed to shine. Last but not least, the narrator, luckily it was Lola Tung; who plays Belly in the TV show; that was narrating and I thought she was the perfect choice. She has a lovely soft voice that is infused with a warmth that really added to the setting and made it easier to listen to when Belly was infuriating me.

I did still enjoy listening to The Summer I Turned Pretty even though it didn’t quite match my expectations but if you are on the fence about it I would recommend watching the TV show instead.