The Summer I Turned Pretty: Book vs. TV Show

The Summer I Turned Pretty is a book series published by Jenny Han in 2009, about a teenage girl named Belly, who travels with her mom and brother, Steven, to their mom's best friends summer house in a town named Cousins. Her mom's best friend has two son's around Belly's age, who she practically grew up with, and has been going to spend the summer with since they were kids. 

 The book series ended in 2011, but prime video recently released the seven episode tv show about the book this past summer. It obviously isn't the exact representation of the book, as I have read the entire series, and watched the tv show at least three times. Even so, I enjoyed both of them, but I would argue that the tv show is better, especially since they added a different plot line and characters, which made it more interesting to watch.

TV SHOW

The tv series for The Summer I Turned Pretty follows a more mature plot, and the rating is 16+. The actors, obviously, are not in their teens, but mid or early 20s. But the actors do a good job of playing someone around 16-18, so it doesn't make much of a difference. With this, the diversity in the show is amazing compared to the little amount characters they had in the book series, one thing I disliked about it. One thing I don't like a lot about the show is that they focus a lot on Laurel and Susannah, Belly's mom and her best friend. In the books, it really wasn't about them, the only important thing was that Susannah survived cancer, but nothing else. I liked how in the books there was more time for character development than that, but I see how that can be depicted in a show easily, and over less time.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Book Depiction: 5/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 9/10

BOOK SERIES

Although I already touched on a majority of what the books are like, the tv show only covered one book right now, and they are currently filming for the next season, which will be about the second book. The first book is pretty innocent, compared to the show, and is probably for at least kids aged 13+. Also, It follows an entirely different plot than what the show does, and has a lot of flashbacks to support the plot. Personally, I enjoyed the plot from the show better than the books, but the book also did a good job of shaping each characters personalities, and they did a good job transferring that into the show as well.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Characters: 8/10

Plot: 5/10

In the end, my personal favorite is the show, but I still enjoy the books a lot, and I would recommend that you read the books if you like the genre of teenage drama and love, and to watch the show because it really makes you go through all the emotions, and show's like that are worth watching. Hope you enjoyed learning more about The Summer I Turned Pretty!

- Cali