Great news everyone: the adaptation of Jenny Han's best-selling book, The Summer I Turned Pretty has landed on Amazon Prime. And yep, we've already powered our way through the entire season.
Based on the first book in a trilogy by Jenny Han, who – you may remember – wrote the To All the Boys I've Loved Before series, the show follows Belly: an endearingly awkward teenager who's ready to shake off the ‘little sister’ vibes and finally become the romantic heroine in the story of her own life.
In April, it was confirmed (via Variety) that Han had signed an overall film and television deal with Amazon, with the author saying, “Adapting my novel, ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ into a television series at Prime Video has been an incredible experience, and I’m so thrilled to now expand my relationship with them.”
Does this mean we can expect more from Han in the future? We may just be in luck. In the meantime, here's everything we know about her latest project, The Summer I Turned Pretty:
What's The Summer I Turned Pretty about?
As we mentioned earlier, The Summer I Turned Pretty will be based on the book by Jenny Han, of the same name. It's the first in a trilogy, followed by It's Not Summer Without You and We'll Always Have Summer. The synopsis for the book (via Jenny Han's official website) reads:
"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.”
That's right folks, we've got a love triangle on our hands.
Dana Hawley
Who stars in The Summer I Turned Pretty?
Lola Tung will take the lead as Belly, who finds herself in a love triangle with her childhood friends, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher (played by Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno). Her mother, Laurel, will be played by Jackie Chung, while her surrogate-aunt (and mother to Conrad and Jeremiah) will be played by Rachel Blanchard.
A coming-of-age love story! The Summer I Turned Pretty is a highly anticipated adaptation of a trilogy written by Jenny Han that explores love, friendship and family.
The first season will introduce viewers to Belly, who catches the eye of her longtime friends Conrad Fisher and Jeremiah Fisher. The brothers develop an interest in Belly after spending their summers at the beach together.
For Han, 41, the long wait to bring the story to screen made her worry about how longtime fans would react to the series. “I just really want them to feel satisfied by the long wait and feel like the story has come to life in the way that they were hoping for. I hope fans swoon a lot,” the author told Entertainment Weekly in March 2022. “The first time I walked on set, I cried.”
The Virginia native noted that she wasn’t looking to recreate the series straight from the page.
“It’s about distilling what are the most important pieces of the story, and I hinged it around those big moments that I thought were really important to the fans,” Han, who also wrote the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series, added. “I continually asked myself, what do the fans care most about, what do they want to see the most, what are those big tentpole moments, and trying to make sure that I deliver those while still allowing myself room to expand and find new ways into the story.”
Even though the story may introduce new stories, Han teased that readers were taken into account during the development process. “We’ll see the night swims and big crushes and all those sort of big, epic love moments this season. I did try to drop in a lot of Easter eggs throughout the series for the fans of the books,” she hinted. “It’s all the thrill and excitement of first love and what it’s like to really love someone from afar your whole life and then suddenly be interacting with them in a new way.”
Han also pointed out that The Summer I Turned Pretty will explore the different kinds of love — including platonic connections.
“It really is about growing up and coming into your own and that loss of innocence. The first season is really just the beginning of it,” Han continued. “When I started writing it, I realized I needed more space to tell the story. I feel the same way about TV — I think that novels actually lend themselves really well to TV because you just get a lot more time to really delve into the characters and be with them on their journey.”
Scroll down for everything to know about The Summer I Turned Pretty:
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