Review: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Title: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Author: Jenny Han

Date Released: May 5th, 2009

Pages: 276

Rating: 5 out of 5

Description:

Some summers are just destined to be pretty

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 wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

Review:
I literally just finished reading this book and had to write this to tell you guys how awesome it was.  I could not stop reading this book.  I think that if I didn't have school or any homework, I could've finished it in one day.  At first, when I saw this book in bookstores, I hesitated to read it because I'm not really into books like this.  I also thought that it would be about a snobby, pretty girl or something like that because the main character's name is Belly (I don't know how that generalization came to be...).  I'm so glad that I decided to pick it up at my school's library because I really liked it.

I think that the main reason why I liked this book was because it was able to suck me in.  I really wanted to find out what would happen between Belly and Conrad and Jeremiah and Cam (yes, that is a lot of boys to deal with in one summer...).  I almost completely forgot about Cam, who was mentioned on the back of the book, because he showed up towards the middle.  I really wanted Belly to end up with Cam... I thought he was really sweet and nice.  Jeremiah was like that too, but was more brotherly since he's known Belly since she was like born.  I think that I kind of understand why Belly really liked Conrad.  It was because he was sort of mysterious in this hot way.

I thought that Belly was a weird name... and I towards the middle of the book, I was starting to believe that Belly was her real name because they never said that her birth name was Isabel, until she met Cam.  But it was a different nickname because they could've just called her Izzy or Belle, but Belly was very original. 

I think that it was really great that Han put little snippets of Belly's past summers, that show how she came to love Conrad and become best friends with Jeremiah.  They also show who her first kiss was, who her best friend was and how their relationship kind of changes to just a friend, as well as how she changed too.

I definitely need to read the next book, It's Not Summer Without You, and will probably have to read the third one that Jenny Han is working on that should be coming out in the summer of 2011 :D

Cover Review:
I really liked the cover and how it had Belly in the middle with Jeremiah and Conrad on both of her sides.  It also had that beach feeling because of the sun light that cut off one of the boy's face and the way that Belly's hair was sort of flowing in the wind. 

*Description from Goodreads.com

Cleo :)

Jenny Han's website