The Summer I Turned Pretty
Jenny Han, 2009
Romance Young adultContemporary fiction
A girl returns to the beach house where she grew up and finds the boys she's known forever looking at her differently. The mood is nostalgic and hopeful, the voice witty and close, and the story moves with an easy summer rhythm.
Feels like nostalgia and hope. About identity and love.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy YA romance set around a beach-house summer, old friendships and the thrill of being seen anew. The teenage narrator stays close to summer friendships and first love, so adult concerns or a more distant literary voice may not be what you find here.
Why read it
It offers a bright, wistful look at the summer when a familiar place and familiar people start to feel different, and that shift is easy to recognise.
A page from the book
The summer that finally counts, after all the ones that didn't.
It was a summer I would never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was. Jenny Han.Han's first book, Shug, was published in 2006; The Summer I Turned Pretty came out in 2009 and was adapted into a series in 2022.
Books that feel like this
More by Jenny Han
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Jenny Han, 2014
A girl writes secret letters to every boy she's loved—then they get mailed. A warm, funny novel about sisters, first love, and the mess of being seen.
It's Not Summer Without You
Jenny Han, 2010
A grief-stricken summer, two brothers, and a girl who can’t let go of the house that made her.
We'll Always Have Summer
Jenny Han, 2011
The last summer before adulthood, when first love stops being a season and starts asking for a life.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Summer I Turned Pretty for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy YA romance set around a beach-house summer, old friendships and the thrill of being seen anew. The teenage narrator stays close to summer friendships and first love, so adult concerns or a more distant literary voice may not be what you find here.
- What is The Summer I Turned Pretty like?
- The mood is nostalgic and hopeful, the voice witty and close, and the story moves with an easy summer rhythm. Feels like nostalgia and hope. About identity and love.
- What should I read after The Summer I Turned Pretty?
- If you liked The Summer I Turned Pretty, try Will Grayson, Will Grayson (John Green), Heartstopper (Alice Oseman) and Part of Your World (Abby Jimenez).
A taste of the feed
Two rules for never crying again, and what they cost.
“You’re a robot,” he says. Tiny thinks that I am incapable of what humans call emotion because I have not cried since my seventh birthday, when I saw the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven. I suppose I should have known from the title that it wouldn’t end merrily, but in my defense, I was seven. Anyway, I haven’t cried since then. I don’t really understand the point of crying. Also, I feel that crying is almost—like, aside from deaths of relatives or whatever—totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 1. Don’t care too much. 2. Shut up. Everything unfortunate that has ever happened to me has stemmed from failure to follow one of the rules.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson · John Green
What you cannot know by looking, and what it costs to guess.
You can’t tell whether people are gay by what they look like. And gay or straight aren’t the only two options. Anyway, it’s very rude to speculate about people’s sexuality.
Heartstopper · Alice Oseman
What a penguin offers instead of a diamond, and why it's enough.
Have you ever heard of penguin love stones?” “What?” “A penguin love stone. When a male likes a female, he finds a perfect stone and he brings it to her. If she likes it, she puts it in her nest and that’s it. They’re paired for life.” Brian watched Liz taking an order at another table but talked to us. “And your point?” “My point is, the penguin’s not picking her mate because he’s the one who has the best rock. It might look that way, but she’s not. She’s taking the rock because the male she wants the most is offering it. Sometimes what you have to give is enough. Even if it’s a rock instead of a diamond.
Part of Your World · Abby Jimenez
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