“I was excited to tell that story because I think that we don’t as often see the parents on teen shows having their own lives.” And their lives seem to be just as complicated as Belly’s with adult challenges and obstacles to overcome. “It’s also about female friendship and we really see that with Laurel and Beck and this friendship that they have nurtured over decades,” Han shares. As much as the story centers on the complicated love story of Belly and Beck’s boys, it also centers a lot on Susannah and Laurel’s relationship. “We get to spend more time with certain characters that we didn’t get to in the book and even have some new characters,” Han muses. It’s beyond thrilling to me that the story keeps finding its audience all these years later.The show is described as a multigenerational story that hinges on the love triangle between Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah, but it covers much more than this romantic drama. “I think we’ve managed to do both, and there’s nothing more gratifying than that! It’s also really exciting that the show has brought a new generation of readers to the books, who are so eager to see where the story goes. “I went into this adaptation hoping to please the book fans who’ve been waiting so patiently to see this story come on screen, but also hoping to connect with viewers who were coming to the show fresh,” Han says. The triangle plays out over the course of Han’s three books. She finds herself torn between Conrad (Christopher Briney), the boy she’s been in love with her whole life, and his brother, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), whom she’s always seen as a best friend. The show follows a young teenage girl, Belly (Lola Tung), on her family’s annual summer vacation to the beach. We certainly have a summer hit and we’re so excited for even more audiences to find the show and talk about it.” These themes are universal and we are really encouraged by the social chatter, the uptick in Jenny’s book sales, and Taylor Swift’s music from the series topping charts again.

“We’ve been so impressed with the response and embrace of this series from young viewers as well as older generations as many co-view with the young people in their lives. “‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ series captured the escapist, coming-of-age, romantic themes book lovers have enjoyed for several years now,” Vernon Sanders, head of global television at Prime Video, tells Variety. It generated over 107,000 global posts over launch weekend and 725 million potential impressions across platforms, according to social analytics agency DMS. The series also had a massive social media reach, with the hashtag #TheSummerITurnedPretty accumulating over 1.3 billion views on TikTok.

The summer i turned pretty book cover