The Prime Video series “The Summer I Turned Pretty” has everyone excited for summer. Like Belly Conklin (Lola Tung), Conrad Fisher (Christopher Briney), Jeremiah Fisher (Gavin Casalegno), and Steven Conklin (Sean Kaufman), the show has audiences planning their trip to a summer beach house and reveling in the warm weather. Based on the trilogy by Jenny Han, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” takes some creative liberties, including adding in entirely new characters, but keeps the heart of the books in mind.
Like the adaptation, the book trilogy follows Belly as she heads to Cousins Beach, the same as she would any summer. Only this time, everything changes. Between the revelation that Susannah’s (Rachel Blanchard) cancer is back to the clues that both Fisher brothers are romantically interested in Belly, it’s an emotional summer for the teen. As the series continues, additional perspectives from Jeremiah and Conrad are added to the story, allowing us to see how the three main characters are coping with grief, love, and loss. A continuous point to the plot is who Belly will end up with, as she is romantically involved with both brothers at different times.
While each of these books is a wonderful read, especially if you want to know where Belly’s story could go as the show comes to an end, there is one that is better than the others. From emotional heartbreak to the magic of summer, here’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” books ranked from worst to best. Be warned, spoilers for Belly’s summers are written in the sand.
3. It’s Not Summer Without You
The second book of the trilogy, “It’s Not Summer Without You,” is easily the worst. It isn’t a bad story by any means, but it’s a bit of an emotional shock coming off of the first. Gone are the happy days of summer, enjoying time with lifelong family friends on the beach, and looking forward to the 4th of July. Grief, dread, and a general tone of sadness permeate the story in a way that’s hard to get through at times.
While readers likely knew Susannah’s death was coming, the impact it has on everyone is difficult to read about, especially when juxtaposed with Belly’s memories of her fleeting time with Conrad, since their relationship isn’t well-defined in the book. Everything is recontextualized to inherently be about Susannah, making it hard for the characters and readers to untangle their feelings about breakups, house sales, and life decisions from her death.
Belly is upset about her falling out with the Fisher brothers, but she’s also grieving Susannah, making it difficult to process any of her emotions. This only builds when the teens find out Susannah’s husband is planning to sell the beach house, the one place everyone can go to remember her. You can’t help but root for them to find a way through it all, but it’s difficult when, instead of dealing with her grief, Belly finds herself focused on working through her feelings about the brothers.
2. We’ll Always Have Summer
“We’ll Always Have Summer,” the final installment of the trilogy, brings readers back to what they loved about summer from the first book. While there is still some residual grief about Susannah’s passing, Belly and Jeremiah’s joy about the wedding — despite the pushback they receive from their parents — helps remind us of the beach house magic. It’s a place where everyone can be happy, where you can enjoy the season and spend time in the water.
That isn’t to say the book is all sunshine and roses. The revelation of him being intimate with someone else over spring break, causes strain as others find out about it. The third act involves a fight between the brothers, a canceled wedding, and Belly studying abroad, almost as a way to get away from it all. However, the ending of the trilogy is the highlight, and makes working through the hard parts worth it.
Not only does Conrad take a chance, even when it doesn’t seem to work out for him initially, readers get a look into his (and Belly’s) future with the epilogue. It provides the full-circle moment everyone had been waiting for since the first book, while also reinforcing the strength of first love. How can you not enjoy someone writing physical love letters and mailing them halfway across the world?
1. The Summer I Turned Pretty
The best book in the trilogy will always be the first one — “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” While it might seem cliché to say the first is the best, this is a series where it absolutely makes sense. It’s the one that introduced us to the magic of summer through Belly Conklin’s eyes, set up the love triangle between her and the Fisher brothers, and foreshadowed the heartbreak that changed the direction of everyone’s lives forever.
Belly truly has an amazing summer, from having her first real boyfriend to realizing that sometimes a crush is just a crush. There’s also the recognition that she’s growing up, and the time to make her own decisions is coming soon, but she can escape into her bubble of the summer house for just a little while longer and enjoy her teen years. Because of the revelation about Susannah’s cancer, it’s arguably Belly’s last carefree summer, and that sense of innocence is something to hold on to.
While some may like the third book more, the first is the benchmark for the series. It’s hard to recapture the wholesome nature of it in the others, especially after Susannah’s death, and it’s the one where summer feels the most like summer. There isn’t grief lingering over everyone, or anger and disappointment about a wedding, or the Fisher patriarch trying to sell the beach house. It’s summer, teen love, and growing up in its purest form, and while “We’ll Always Have Summer” has some of that magic, it isn’t as raw and powerful as it is in the original.
