Look In A Book: The Summer Series by Jenny Han

 

Amazon Synopsis: Belly has always lived for the summertime, because summer means all her favorite things: swimming, the beach, and the Fisher boys, Conrad and Jeremiah. For as long as she can remember, she’s shared her summers with the brothers at Cousins Beach. And for as long as she can remember, she’s been in love with Conrad. Then one summer it seems like he might have feelings for her too—but so does Jeremiah.

As the summer seasons pass, Belly has to choose between two brothers who love her…and she’ll have to break one of their hearts.

This paperback collection of the complete series includes The Summer I Turned Pretty, It’s Not Summer Without You,and We’ll Always Have Summer.

Well, I did it. Just a week after watching the first season of The Summer I Turned Pretty and after being on my Want To Read list on Goodreads for over ten years, I finished the whole Summer book series by Jenny Han within a span of two days. What I hadn't realized was how short the books were going to be. They are like the definition of a quick and easy read. That was both a good thing and a bad thing in this case.  

This is a story about the love triangle between Belly Conklin and the Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah. Belly has always loved Conrad her whole life, it seems, spending every Summer with her mom, her brother, her mom's best friend, Susannah "Beck" Fisher and her two sons, the ones from the love triangle mentioned above. 

In the first book The Summer I Turned Pretty there was a lot of focus on the past as if it was building Belly's case on why she loves Conrad so much and how it has always and only been him for her...Yeah not so much, I feel like we, as the readers, don't actually learn anything on a real level about Conrad until the third book towards the end, where it's finally clear that he does love Belly and some of his motivations but they aren't all the clear either. It was supposed to come off as everyone could see how they feel about each other, but that's just not the feeling I got most of the time until someone in the story straight up says it, which isn't exactly the expectation I had when going into this book series. 

The majority of the time, it really felt like the book series was building to end with Belly and Jeremiah as that is what most of it was focused on until that's ruined with his fling when they were on a week-long break. 

I'm serious we get a couple scenes maybe a total of three that show the relationship between Belly and Conrad after the first Summer, including her roping him into going to prom with her when he clearly don't want to go and breaking up with him because that's where she thought he was going to do. What we are really subject to is Belly's uncertainty about whether or not they were in a relationship at all even though come to find out in the last book that yes, they dated for about six months with Conrad even coming to visit on Valentine's day, he freaking had to drive five hours for a few moments with her and she's wondering if it was even real or not. Serious, most of the second book is her lamenting how they were never really together and making everything about herself even though through all this both Conrad and Jeremiah were dealing with the reoccurrence of their mom's illness before she died between books one and two. Instead of being there and being an understanding friend to both brothers in their time of need and loss, She's outright mean to Conrad and seemingly ignores Jeremiah.  Belly is actually very selfish and self-centered, and I can't even see why either of the brothers would choose her. 

Okay, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the books while reading them, I wouldn't have finished them if I hadn't but now the next day after binge-reading them and thinking about it, that's the problem with a lot of stories and movies. What is it about the main characters that are so irresistible or undeniable about them? I just don't see the appeal sometimes...

Also, in the new Amazon series that is based on this book series, they did a better job of showing Conrad being nice in the past before changing. We do learn about that a little more in the third book about why he was so moody and distant in the last couple of years but story-wise in the first book, even with all the flashbacks over the years, Belly always seemed to make a point about Conrad not being there or involved and that's normal for Conrad. I like how the TV series would show him dropping what he was doing to help or be with Belly. The book didn't really have that. Also, you come convinced that maybe Belly doesn't remember everything as clearly as she thought. It would have been nice to see a memory she thought featured Jeremiah, choosing to play with her instead of Steven, her brother, and Conrad, that it was actually Conrad like in her other memory about the dog named Rosie that she insisted was Jeremiah, not Conrad, but Jeremiah informed her otherwise. It felt like it could have put everything about the past into question and maybe reveal more about her and Conrad's shared past of falling in love...but I guess you would need a longer book for that.

I would give this 3.5 out of 5. I wish there was more. I wish the books were a little longer as the Summer always seems to pass with a total of five scenes dedicated to the present moments. Everything in this book seems so focused on the past but not in a way to completely satisfy the reader with the future.  

 Pick up your copy to read today!