Thursday, July 24, 2014

The Summer I Turned Pretty - Jenny Han (#1 - Summer)

"Would you rather live one perfect day over and over or live your life with no perfect days but just decent ones?" 








Title: The Summer I Turned Pretty
Author: Jenny Han
Genres: Young adult, romance
Rate out of 5: ☆☆☆

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.


This is not a book that I would usually read but, as it is summer, I had no choice but to give it a go.

This book was pretty much what I had expected. Romantic and corny. Yup.

The book started off with flashbacks to previous summer years and the present summer. It usually had a link though, like if something was mentioned in the present summer that happened in a previous summer, a flashback would occur and elaborate.

What annoyed me most was Belly. Her name's actually Isabel, btw. She was this irritating, spoilt, self-centered little brat who always went crying off to her mother. She whines about being left out all the time and her brother Steven and the Fisher brothers treating her like a kid when she is the one that throws a tantrum and tells on them when she doesn't get her way. Then, she uses a guy for her entertainment and then yells at Conrad for using her, when he never even lay a hand on her. This guy, Cam, has been the sweetest to her and when he realises that she'll always have feelings for Conrad and not for him, he is the one to leave and then Belly doesn't even return his calls when all he wanted to do was see her before summer ended.

Jenny Han didn't spend a lot of time exploring her characters. Belly was just super irritating; Cam was... just Cam; her brother, Steven, was underdeveloped and I didn't really feel their brother-sister relationship; Jeremiah was the funny one and her best friend, but other than that, we didn't know a whole lot about him; and Conrad was the dark, brooding, reserved one who Belly spends so much of the book swooning over and so you would expect to learn more about him. No. He starts smoking and drinking and we don't even get a definite reason why.

On a good note, this book was kind of cute - in a cheesy way. Conrad was really protective over Belly, Jeremiah was her best friend and Belly and Cam had their 'aw' moments.

There isn't anything too complex about this book, it is a very easy read and definitely a good book for the summer. It makes you want to have the summers that she does - maybe not with her actions exactly, but the longing's there. Even though I mostly said negative things, this book was interesting enough to make me want to read it until the end and enough to make me want to read the next book so that's something. And, even though, I found the main character a pain in the ass, I found myself smiling several times.

(I might make a cast for this just for fun)

-C E L I N E

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