Karen's Reviews > The Summer I Turned Pretty The Collection

** spoiler alert ** I really enjoyed the first two books but enjoyed the third one less (kind of the same way I felt about the "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" trilogy too). I never expected to like any of these books so this surprised me. I was never going to pick these books up as the titles looked cheesy and I don't like stories featuring love triangles. But I found a cheap copy, so...

I thought that Belly was portrayed much more realistically than the pretty perfect Lara Jean in the To All the Boys I've Loved Before series; she is often immature, selfish and treated Cam like shit in book 1. She was a believable teenage character. I loved the descriptions of the summers in Cousins and Susannah's cancer storyline that threads through the end of book 1 and book 2 in particular. But... the plot of book 3 was not my favourite.

I did not like the negative exaggeration of Jeremiah's character. He was really nice in book 2 and turned into a douche in book 3. Conrad's faults are whitewashed over. The ending is very unsatisfying. The big romantic scene with Conrad I was expecting never occurred. There was a time in book 2 that I thought the end of the series was going to see Belly and Cam getting back together, to avoid issues between the brothers, but no, he just drops off the radar and Belly goes for the obvious. Steven (Belly's brother) also drops off the radar somewhat in the last 2 books, which was a shame.

I absolutely loved the character of Laurel, Belly's mum, particularly in book 2. One of the strengths of this series for me was mother-daughter relationships. Not always perfect, but strong.

This review actually sounds more negative than I intended it to be. I actually had a good time reading these books and can see myself reading them again in the future. I read each book in an evening. (2nd, 3rd and 6th of August)