It had been- How many days had it been? How many days exactly?-two months since Susannah had died and I still couldn’t believe it. Conrad and I weren’t together, and Susannah was dead. Taylor was snapping her fingers in my face. “Hello? Did you hear anything I just said?” Just like always, Cousins was the only place I wanted to be. Jeremiah jumped in too, and he yelled, “Come on, Belly!” He winked at me as he came from behind, lifted Conrad up, and launched him into the pool. Then Jeremiah said, “You guys need to get a room,” but I knew he was joking. He leaned in, and he kissed me, and his lips were cold and salty from the ocean.
Let me see.” And then he peered at my face in his serious Conrad way. He squatted next to me and said, “I can’t tell.
He said, “You have words on your cheeks.” Conrad strode over to me, lifted the sweaty magazine from my face, and grinned. They walked up the steps, cracking up over how Steven had lost his shorts after a particularly ferocious wave. Conrad and Jeremiah came back to the house first. Something romantic.Ĭonrad and Jeremiah and Steven had been surfing all morning. She’d probably come out soon with a glass of sun tea and a book I should read. My mother was playing solitaire on the front porch, Susannah was inside puttering around the kitchen. I was lying by the pool with a magazine on my face. At least, that’s what I got out of it.Ĭontinue reading “The Summer I Turned Pretty, by Jenny Han” → Tagged beach house, belly, friendship, jenny han, summer, the summer i turned pretty Leave a comment Search Reviews and Posts Search for: Follow Musings and Books via EmailĮnter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.It was a hot summer day in Cousins.
The overall message of this book was very realistic stuff happens and people change. I found the ending to be a little confusing and unsatisfying, because I wasn’t exactly sure if Belly got what she wanted at the end, but I kind of liked it anyway. However, the writing is usually brimming with emotions and Han has a specialty of giving the characters life and make them pop out of the page. Han’s writing can get kind of annoying sometimes she tends to add a quote, and then give a fact about the person saying it, which continues for a few paragraphs. Han added vital scenes and information at the right points, and that really added a lot of emotion to the story. I thought the overall plot of the story was a little vague, but it eventually summed up to be pretty clear at the end. So, I decided to pick up her second novel and I was pleasantly rewarded with a story of summer, friendship, and finding yourself. I’ve been hearing a lot about Jenny Han especially from the books To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and Burn For Burn, which are very popular in the contemporary YA world. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along. 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. 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. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August.