‘To All the Boys’ Fans Will Love This Series by the Same Author
If you finished the To All the Boys trilogy and are looking for another coming-of-age tale about sweet first love and self-discovery, there’s another series that might be right up your alley. The Summer I Turned Pretty is currently the number-one TV show on Amazon Prime in the United States and the world. The show also comes from Jenny Han, the same author who wrote the To All the Boys trilogy. Han actually published The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy before she wrote To All the Boys. It was her very first published book series and also her first series published for YA readers.
Like the book, the show follows Belly Conklin (Lola Tung), who heads to Cousins Beach every summer with her mom and brother, where they stay with her mom’s best friend and her two sons, Conrad (Christopher Brinley) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). However, the summer she turns sixteen is the most memorable one because it marks the summer she grew from a gawky awkward child into a young woman. As a result, she arrives at Cousins Beach more confident that Conrad, her long-time crush, will finally reciprocate her feelings. Unfortunately, growing up and love is more complicated than she thought, and she finds herself navigating love triangles and trials as the Conklins’ and Fishers’ lives change in unexpected ways.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is currently in its second season, with the season finale dropping on August 18. Additionally, the show has already been renewed for a third and final season, meaning there will be one season for every book in the series. It’s definitely a show To All the Boys fans should consider taking a look into before season 3.
Why The Summer I Turned Pretty is such a delight
The Summer I Turned Pretty boasts a lot of the same merits as To All the Boys, including positive Asian American representation, exploration of parental loss and grief, and a deep dive into the journey to finding love without losing oneself. However, the romance is a lot more intense in The Summer I Turned Pretty as it features a sharp love triangle and focuses on the complexities of love. (Not all love stories play out as Lara Jean’s and Peter Kravinsky’s do, after all.)
The show also delves a lot deeper into the topic of grief and loss, with this being the primary theme in the second season. It’s not just a look at parental loss, but also at the loss of a friend, the loss of love, and the guilt that arises when one feels they should adhere to a hierarchy of grief.
While the show is just as delightful, deep, and romantic as the books, it also actually deviates from the books in a few positive ways. In the books, Belly and her family were written as white, but in the show, they are mixed-race. Belly’s mother, Laurel (Jackie Chung), is Korean, while her father is white. Han explained that the change was the result of her modernizing the story a bit and writing it for today’s audiences. Back when she wrote the first book in 2009, the presence of POC authors in the YA genre was sparser than it was today and there was less interest in Asian American stories. Making the show today, when there’s a little more positive reception to diversity and representation, allowed Han to include those aspects and elevate the story. Similarly, she was able to add some LGBTQ+ representation by hinting at Jeremiah’s bisexuality in the show and featuring a nonbinary character, Skye (Elsie Fisher).
There are other additions to the show, too, like a deeper exploration of anxiety, depression, mental health, and the adult characters in the show. While the themes can get quite serious, it doesn’t detract at all from the overarching love story and the depiction of the fun, lighthearted, and nostalgic side of coming-of-age.
(featured image: Amazon Prime)
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