Summary16-year-old Isabel "Belly" Conklin (Lola Tung) suddenly finds she has the attention of two boys: Conrad Fisher (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) in this adaptation of Jenny Han’s novel of the same name.
Summary16-year-old Isabel "Belly" Conklin (Lola Tung) suddenly finds she has the attention of two boys: Conrad Fisher (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) in this adaptation of Jenny Han’s novel of the same name.
It was more than just another teen drama because, in addition to its lived-in, believable characters, it had an undercurrent of fear and potential loss. That fear becomes reality and bursts to the surface in season two, which isn’t letting you escape anywhere. But it somehow holds space for both grief and joy, and that feels even better.
The whole show is summer escapism (if your escapism can handle some longing and heartbreak) in TV form. The beats of The Summer I Turned Pretty might be familiar—predictable, even—but it’s a good familiarity, like your favorite summer spot coming into view for the first time on vacation.
If you loved The Last Song, Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, or have the vaguest notion of what “coastal grandmother aesthetic” means, you’ll eat it all up with a spoon. ... There’s a slightly more grown-up but nonetheless delightful escapism in Laurel’s setup as a single mom who, apparently, gets to spend the whole summer smoking weed and lightly co-parenting with her rich best friend.
The finale braids together the series’ many narrative throughlines with enough tearjerking emotion to earn the already-greenlit second season — though it’s telling that even then, the most affecting moments emerge from the family units and friendships and not from the ostensible couplings.
It’s not the summer show we all grasped hungrily at in our romance-starved grips last year. It’s more of wave-after-wave of angst, grief, and fighting, with happy moments too few and far between to make watching Season 2 nearly as enjoyable as the first.
Because the source material’s appeal is so lasting, the series had the chance to resonate with adults too—unfortunately, by Season 2, it seems to have squandered that potential.