Review: The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You, We'll Always Have Summer (Summer series) by Jenny Han

Title:

The Summer I Turned Pretty (#1)

It's Not Summer Without You (#2)

We'll Always Have Summer (#3)

(The Summer series)

Author: Jenny Han

Published: May 5, 2009 - April 27, 2010 - April 26, 2011

Source: purchased

Good to know: the books have great soundtracks

Amazon Summary: (First installment). Belly’s never been the kind of girl that 

things happen to. Year after year, she’s spent her summers at the beach house 

with Conrad and Jeremiah. The boys never noticed Belly noticing them. And every 

summer she hoped it would be different. This time, it was. But the summer Belly 

turned pretty was the summer that changed everything. For better, and for 

worse.

**REVIEW**

This is a collected review of the entire series.

Even though the description of the first installment, ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’, is quite vague it is exactly as it should be.

These books are complex in simple formats. Han has worked off a storyline, a plot, that to the roots is simple but she’s made something so honest and heartbreaking and real out of it. The story is told in flashes between the past and the present. It’ll take you to love and heartbreak, growing, finding your way - and back. The setting offers a plain but in description angelic beach. The cover of ‘We’ll Always Have Summer’ is so right on the dot.

Belly grows a whole lot throughout the three installments. She starts off young, naive, and oblivious; making things happen for herself going by all the wrong ways. Sometimes you wish to have been able to just shake her up, trying to get her to her senses.

Conrad and Jeremiah are opposites. Not at all stereotypical as in YA writing. They’re very real, going about in realistic manners. These are real teenage boys, struggling and rebellious. I didn't fall for either one of them instantly but they grew on me. Han does an excellent job of not making you particularly gravitate towards one of the brothers more than the other (I was torn until the last book).

Although I found the books to be quite slow and somewhat flat, and the last installment to be messy and less believable. It’s how Han has succedeed to pair simple words together and make genuine and beautiful phrases that’ll pull at your heartstrings.

Overall, the ‘Summer’ series is a beautiful work. You’ll be struck by the genuine voice and the painful honesty. It'll leave you feeling something.

(4/5)