The Summer I Turned Pretty

[Listened to the audiobook narrated by Lola Tung.]

a co-worker of mine recommended this to me, both the show and the books, as very mindless entertainment with little to no plot to play in the background. and i have to admit, she was right— this book has no plot at all.

honestly i hated Belly (stupid ass name), Conrad, Jeremiah, and Taylor, i found them all to be unbearable. Steven was just kind of there, but you might as well throw him into the unbearable category by association too. the only characters i liked were Cam and Susannah, and i'm still mad at how Belly ended up just using Cam in the end.

i only wish i had a bit of warning for Susannah's cancer storyline, as my mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and i found it a bit triggering. i almost coundn't finish this book because of it. the way Susannah was described as frail, her arms bone-thin, wearing loose dresses to cover it up was too real and almost made me cry haha. though the moment between her and Belly as they made muffins was beautiful and reminded me of my experiences with my own mom, probably the only scene in the book that i actually liked. also, they call their grandmother the same uncommon name i call my grandmother (“granna”), which is triggering in a whole other way lmao.

aside from all of that i enjoyed Jenny Han's gorgeously descriptive writing and Lola Tung's audiobook narration, and i think that might be what saved this book from a worse rating.