A Frustrating Yet Absolutely Captivating Series

I dislike the feeling of frustration, but that was exactly what this series brought me, and yet, I couldn’t stop watching. In fact, I even watched it twice because it was very wattpad-ish and it kept drawing me in. And both times, I watched with subtitles just because I wanted to make a mental note of some of the literary devices used.

The Summer I Turned Pretty is a coming of age series about a girl who became pretty one summer and then found herself in a love triangle that included two brothers and herself, obviously.

Among the two brothers, the eldest (Conrad) has been Belly’s crush since childhood and Jeremiah, on the other hand, has liked Belly for years. That particular summer when they met at the beach house they’ve been visiting every summer since they were kids, she found herself wanting to be with Conrad. But after he showed her all angles of pain, she began to go after the other brother.

This series is actually a lot. For me, it got me angry, happy and sad minute by minute. It was a whole emotional roller coaster for me. There were scenes I found myself shouting, "Belly, are you okay? What is wrong with you? What's all this?" And then I would remember that it's just fiction.

Let me begin by talking about the storyline. Watching the movie felt like I was watching a 16-year-old just be sixteenish. And she does absolutely everything wrong knowing it’s wrong. I wasn’t even surprised when I found out the series had a book. It literally sounds like a book when you watch. And he literature works in this series are just brilliant.

The cinematography. Oh boy. It was so good. I had to google the budget for just the cinematography because it was awesome. All the video angles in this series are just amazing and I love how they always took their time to include therapeutic beach videos.

Another thing I liked in this series was their costumes. I took my time to pay attention to what they wore throughout the series and they didn’t disappoint. It was summer, the weather was hot, they were by the beach and made sure their costumes matched that theme. And they also didn’t overdo it at all.

I’ve heard people talk about the actions of Belly and other characters in the movie and how annoying they are. But then, that’s the whole point of being 16. You make decisions that nobody ever understands except you, sometimes. I think there’s nothing wrong with this series. The summer I turned pretty can do no wrong in my eyes. I’ll give it a 8/10.

Images are from IMDb