The Summer I Turned Pretty review

A Summer Romance That Is Really About Grief, Memory, and Growing Up

The Summer I Turned Pretty initially invited me into Cousins Beach with every familiar promise of a romantic summer drama: a beautiful beach house, childhood friendships, late-night parties, first kisses, jealous glances, and two brothers who suddenly begin seeing the same girl differently. The title suggests a simple transformation story about Belly Conklin becoming more confident and receiving attention she once wanted. What kept me watching, however, was not the question of which brother she would choose. It was the way this apparently perfect summer gradually became connected with illness, grief, parental expectations, and the painful realization that childhood places cannot remain unchanged forever.

This The Summer I Turned Pretty review covers the complete three-season Prime Video series based on Jenny Han’s novels. Although the story is often promoted through the romantic triangle involving Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah, its emotional reach is broader. The friendship between Laurel and Susannah, the bond between the Fisher brothers, Steven’s movement from irritating older brother to ambitious young adult, and Taylor’s growth beyond the role of comic best friend all help the series feel like a multigenerational drama rather than one extended competition for Belly’s attention.

The show can be melodramatic, and it frequently depends on characters refusing to say the one sentence that would prevent several episodes of confusion. Its soundtrack occasionally tells me exactly what emotion I should feel before the performances have fully earned it. Belly’s decisions can also be frustrating enough that I needed to pause and remind myself she is a teenager growing into adulthood rather than a perfectly rational narrator. Even with those annoyances, the series creates a strong emotional attachment to Cousins Beach. Every return feels comforting, while every change to the house or the people inside it feels more painful than it should.

Belly Conklin: Romantic Dreamer and Unreliable Decision-Maker

Isabel “Belly” Conklin enters the story carrying years of affection for Conrad Fisher. She has built him into a central part of her imagined future long before he begins treating her as a possible romantic partner. Her feelings are not based only on one summer. They are tied to childhood visits, family traditions, memories of Susannah, and the belief that Cousins Beach represents the happiest version of her life.

Lola Tung gives Belly an appealing combination of openness, insecurity, stubbornness, and emotional impulsiveness. She captures the way Belly can feel mature in one conversation and remarkably young in the next. That inconsistency suits a character moving through first love, serious grief, college, and decisions whose consequences become much larger than she expected.

Belly is not always easy to support. She sometimes confuses intensity with certainty, assumes that strong feelings justify poor timing, and underestimates how her choices affect both brothers. She wants honesty from Conrad and Jeremiah while delaying difficult truths of her own. The series allows these contradictions to create conflict, though it occasionally protects her from consequences more than I would have preferred.

Her strongest scenes are not the grand romantic gestures. They are the quieter moments when she realizes that love does not automatically create compatibility and that nostalgia can distort judgment. Belly repeatedly tries to preserve the emotional shape of earlier summers, even after death, distance, and adulthood have changed everyone involved. Her real coming-of-age journey is learning that choosing a future requires accepting that the past cannot be rebuilt perfectly.

Conrad Fisher: Silence as Both Protection and Damage

Conrad is introduced through Belly’s idealized perspective, which makes his emotional distance appear mysterious and romantic before the series reveals the pressure beneath it. He knows more about Susannah’s illness than many people around him, carries anger toward his father, struggles with anxiety, and believes that protecting others means hiding how badly he is coping.

Christopher Briney gives Conrad a withdrawn physical presence that works especially well in scenes where the character says very little. A pause, unfinished sentence, or refusal to make eye contact often communicates the emotion Conrad cannot express directly. The performance keeps him sympathetic even when his behavior becomes deeply frustrating.

Conrad’s central flaw is not a lack of feeling. It is his belief that feeling deeply excuses him from communicating clearly. He repeatedly makes decisions for other people, assuming they will be safer if he removes himself or conceals information. Instead, his silence creates uncertainty that Belly and Jeremiah fill with their own interpretations.

The series occasionally romanticizes this emotional unavailability. Conrad’s sadness, intelligence, and history with Belly make his distance appear meaningful, but a relationship cannot survive indefinitely on private devotion and misunderstood gestures. The later episodes become stronger when Conrad is forced to take responsibility for what he failed to say rather than simply being rewarded for feeling it privately.

His connection with Belly remains convincing because it contains history, attraction, pain, and a specific form of recognition. They understand parts of one another that other people miss, but understanding is not the same as readiness. Much of their story asks whether love experienced at the wrong time can become healthy later or whether it will remain attached to an idealized summer that no longer exists.

Jeremiah Fisher: Warmth, Resentment, and the Need to Be Chosen

Jeremiah initially appears to be the easier brother. He is sociable, affectionate, emotionally expressive, and willing to show Belly that he wants her. Where Conrad withdraws, Jeremiah reaches outward. This contrast makes him an appealing romantic possibility rather than a temporary obstacle.

Gavin Casalegno brings charm and vulnerability to the role, especially when Jeremiah’s confidence gives way to the fear that he will always be Belly’s second choice. His relationship with Conrad contains genuine love, but it is damaged by years of comparison. Jeremiah sees his brother receiving attention, sympathy, and respect even when Conrad refuses to explain himself, while Jeremiah’s openness is sometimes treated as evidence that he feels less deeply.

His romance with Belly offers stability, humor, and direct affection. They can communicate more easily during many stages of the story, and their friendship gives the relationship a comfortable base. The problem is that comfort gradually becomes confused with certainty. Jeremiah wants Belly to choose him completely, but he remains aware that part of her emotional history belongs to Conrad.

The later conflict exposes Jeremiah’s own weaknesses. He can be impulsive, defensive, and unwilling to examine whether a major commitment is being used to repair insecurity. His mistakes should not reduce him to the “wrong brother,” because the series is more interesting when both relationships contain real affection and serious problems. Jeremiah’s tragedy is that he wants to be chosen without comparison, yet his life has taught him to measure himself against Conrad constantly. His relationship with Belly cannot escape that pattern until all three characters stop treating love as a competition with one permanent winner.

Susannah and Laurel: The Relationship That Gives Cousins Beach Its Meaning

The emotional foundation of Cousins Beach is not the teenage romance. It is the friendship between Susannah Fisher and Laurel Park. Their annual summers have created a shared family structure in which the Conklins and Fishers function almost like one household.

Rachel Blanchard gives Susannah warmth, optimism, and a determined belief in beautiful outcomes. She wants Belly to feel special, imagines romantic futures for the children, and attempts to preserve summer traditions even while facing illness. Her positivity can become a form of denial, but it also explains why the house feels so emotionally protected. Jackie Chung’s Laurel provides a necessary contrast. She is practical, guarded, and less comfortable expressing affection through fantasy. Her love for Susannah is profound, and the later seasons show how grief affects her ability to remain emotionally available to Belly and Steven.

Their friendship gives the series its multigenerational depth. Belly’s romantic confusion takes place inside a world built by two women whose own relationship has survived marriages, parenting, disagreement, and time. When Susannah dies, the loss is not only personal. It removes the person who maintained the emotional mythology of Cousins Beach. Laurel’s grief is often quieter than the teenagers’ pain, but it is no less significant. She must continue being a mother while losing the friend who understood a central part of her life. The series is most mature when it allows grief to appear through avoidance, anger, exhaustion, and practical decisions rather than only dramatic crying scenes.

Steven and Taylor: The Supporting Romance That Learns to Grow Up

Steven Conklin begins as the sarcastic older brother who treats Belly’s romantic life as an opportunity for teasing. Over time, he becomes one of the series’ more interesting supporting characters. His academic ambition, insecurity about money, complicated loyalty to the Fisher family, and desire to build a successful future give him concerns beyond the central triangle. Sean Kaufman handles Steven’s comedy well, but the character improves most when that humor becomes a defense against uncertainty. His relationship with Laurel reveals the pressure he feels to appear capable, while his friendship with Jeremiah and Conrad forces him to navigate conflicts he cannot solve through one clever comment.

Taylor Madison Jewel also grows beyond the conventional best-friend role. Rain Spencer gives her energy and confidence, but later seasons reveal that Taylor’s bold advice sometimes hides her own fear of rejection. She can encourage Belly to make dramatic romantic choices while struggling to communicate honestly in her own relationship. Steven and Taylor work because their chemistry feels less mythologized than Belly’s relationships. They argue, flirt, make mistakes, and gradually develop a more realistic understanding of what commitment requires. Their scenes often provide relief from the heavier triangle, but they also show a version of romance built through present-day compatibility rather than childhood destiny.

Cousins Beach: A Place That Becomes a Character

Cousins Beach is presented through warm sunlight, large windows, ocean air, bicycle rides, garden parties, swimming pools, boardwalk lights, and rooms filled with shared history. The setting is idealized deliberately because Belly sees it as the place where her best memories live.

The beach house is particularly important. It represents Susannah’s presence, the connection between the families, and the belief that summer traditions can survive any change. When the house becomes threatened, the conflict feels larger than a property dispute. Losing it would mean surrendering the physical space where the characters still feel connected to Susannah. The series uses seasonal contrast effectively. Summer scenes are bright and socially active, while off-season visits feel quieter and more exposed. Without parties and traditions, the same rooms reveal absence more clearly.

I sometimes felt the production leaned too heavily on the visual fantasy of wealth. The size of the house, elaborate events, travel, and comfortable surroundings can make the characters’ world feel distant from ordinary teenage experience. The show occasionally acknowledges differences in money, especially through Steven and Laurel, but Cousins remains a polished dream space. That artificial beauty serves the story. Belly is not only choosing between two brothers; she is trying to choose which version of Cousins Beach she wants to preserve. The setting becomes inseparable from her understanding of love.

The Romantic Triangle: Emotionally Effective and Frequently Exhausting

The central triangle works because neither brother is an obviously empty option. Conrad and Jeremiah offer Belly different forms of intimacy, and her relationships with them develop at different stages of her life. The conflict is not simply about deciding who is more attractive. It is about whether history, communication, comfort, or personal growth should determine a lasting partnership.

The series is also guilty of stretching this question through avoidable misunderstandings. Characters overhear only part of conversations, hide information for protective reasons, delay confessions until the worst possible moment, and interpret silence as certainty. These devices create effective cliffhangers but can make the drama feel mechanically prolonged. At times, the brothers appear too willing to damage their relationship over Belly. Their grief over Susannah and unresolved family tension explain part of the hostility, but the story occasionally reduces their bond to romantic competition when it should be central in its own right.

Belly’s indecision is understandable during adolescence, yet later commitments make uncertainty more consequential. The series becomes more compelling when it stops treating the triangle as a fantasy and begins examining how repeated reversals hurt real people. I never felt that the show required me to dislike one brother completely. Both have moments of selfishness and generosity, and both need emotional growth beyond whether Belly chooses them. That balance keeps the triangle engaging even when the repeated conflict becomes tiring.

Grief as the Series’ Most Powerful Theme

Susannah’s illness and death transform every relationship. Conrad internalizes responsibility, Jeremiah feels abandoned and overlooked, Belly loses a woman who had shaped her sense of belonging, Laurel loses her closest friend, and Steven watches the emotional structure of both families change.

The second season handles grief most directly through the threatened beach house and fragmented memories. Characters return to Cousins hoping the familiar setting will make them feel like themselves again, but the absence remains present in every room. Grief also explains why several romantic decisions become so intense. Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah are not choosing partners in an emotionally neutral period. They are trying to regain stability, preserve connection, and avoid another loss.

The series occasionally uses flashbacks heavily, but the structure suits a story about people living beside their memories. A present-day argument can carry the weight of an earlier summer without every character explaining that history aloud. I found the family scenes more affecting than many of the romantic confrontations. A quiet conversation about Susannah or a character entering one of her familiar spaces often communicated more than another dramatic declaration beside the ocean.

Music and the Emotional Language of the Series

The Summer I Turned Pretty uses popular music aggressively, especially songs associated with romantic longing, heartbreak, confidence, and nostalgia. Taylor Swift tracks have become particularly connected with the show’s identity, often arriving during major Belly and Conrad moments.

When the placement works, the music creates immediate emotional recognition. A familiar song can turn a glance, dance, drive, or memory into a larger event without requiring additional dialogue.

The weakness is that the soundtrack sometimes performs too much emotional work. A scene may feel important because the selected song carries years of audience association, not because the writing has built sufficient tension on its own.

The musical choices also make the series feel strongly connected to its cultural moment. That energy benefits the romantic fantasy, though some placements may age more quickly than the quieter dramatic scenes. I generally enjoyed the soundtrack because it matches Belly’s perspective. She experiences love through heightened emotion and imagined significance, so a private moment naturally feels accompanied by the perfect song in her memory.

Visual Style and Summer Atmosphere

The series uses warm lighting, pastel clothing, beaches, parties, fireworks, and golden evening scenes to create a romanticized summer atmosphere. Cousins Beach rarely looks accidental. Every porch, bedroom, and shoreline appears ready to hold an important memory.

The costumes help communicate the characters’ growth. Belly’s style changes as she becomes more confident and later more adult, while Conrad and Jeremiah maintain distinct visual personalities without appearing heavily designed.

The debutante-ball material in the first season gives the production an excuse for formal dresses, rehearsals, dances, and social rituals. These elements occasionally feel disconnected from the later family drama, but they establish Belly’s early desire to be seen differently.

College locations and later travel expand the visual world, though Cousins remains the place with the strongest identity. Scenes outside it often feel transitional until the characters develop lives that no longer depend entirely on the beach house.

Pacing Across Three Seasons

The first season has the cleanest coming-of-age shape. Belly returns to Cousins, receives new attention, attends the debutante program, and becomes involved with both brothers while Susannah’s illness gradually changes the tone.

The second season is more emotionally concentrated. Grief, anger, and the battle over the house give the story a clear central objective, though the limited timeframe causes several relationship changes to happen quickly.

The final season has more space and a larger episode count, allowing college life, adult decisions, engagement plans, family reactions, and unresolved feelings to develop over a longer period. This broader scope benefits the characters, although the story still relies on delayed communication and romantic reversals.

Some episodes spend too long preparing a confrontation whose outcome is already easy to predict. Others move through major consequences rapidly because the series wants to reach the next emotional turning point.

The overall structure remains satisfying because the characters visibly age. Their concerns move from summer dances and first kisses toward marriage, careers, independence, and the possibility that choosing adulthood may require leaving familiar places behind.

Who Should Watch The Summer I Turned Pretty?

The Summer I Turned Pretty is ideal for viewers who enjoy young-adult romance, complicated triangles, beach settings, family drama, nostalgic soundtracks, and stories about first love extending into early adulthood. Fans of Jenny Han’s novels will recognize the central emotional journey while finding expanded roles and altered details in the adaptation.

The series works best for audiences willing to accept melodrama. Characters make impulsive decisions, conceal important information, and treat romantic moments with enormous seriousness. That emotional scale is part of the appeal rather than an accidental flaw.

Viewers primarily interested in healthy communication may find the central relationships frustrating. Anyone hoping for a fast plot may also struggle with the repeated reconsideration of the same feelings.

The show offers more than romance through Susannah and Laurel’s friendship, family grief, Steven and Taylor’s development, and the changing meaning of Cousins Beach. Those elements provide enough emotional variety to keep the triangle from carrying every episode alone.

My Rating

I give The Summer I Turned Pretty a personal rating of 8.5/10. The series is romantic, frustrating, visually inviting, and emotionally more substantial than its simple triangle premise suggests. Its strongest material comes from grief, family friendship, and the changing meaning of Cousins Beach. The romantic conflict remains engaging because Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah all make mistakes that emerge from recognizable fears rather than convenient villainy.

I became tired of the repeated misunderstandings and occasionally wanted every character to sit at one table and speak honestly for ten uninterrupted minutes. Yet the show’s emotional messiness is also part of its appeal. First love rarely arrives with perfect timing, and grief makes certainty even harder. The Summer I Turned Pretty understands that growing up is not only about discovering whom you love. It is about learning whether the life you once imagined still belongs to the person you have become.