From the Bookshelf of Addicted to YA…

The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer, #1)

Jenny Han

Start date: June 1, 2013

Finish date: June 30, 2013

Discussion: BOTM Currently Reading

Why we're reading this: It won the poll for the June theme BOTM.
Theme: Summer
[close] It won the poll for the June theme BOTM.
Theme: Summer

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What Members Thought

May 05, 2014 Renuka rated it it was ok

Shelves: romance, young-adult, reviewed, realistic, chick-lit, e-book, owned, contemporary, triangles-of-love, land-of-blah-and-boring

If there were prizes for stupid narrators and stupid love triangles, this one would sweep the board. For most of this I was rolling my eyes, groaning in frustrated agony, and yelling things at the characters. In fact, I nearly tossed the book aside within the first few pages. I don't know why I kept reading. I just did. And so, this book pulled me out of a reading slump.

It's not a very good book. Most of it is predictable and agonizingly childish. The main character - Belly - is just a four year If there were prizes for stupid narrators and stupid love triangles, this one would sweep the board. For most of this I was rolling my eyes, groaning in frustrated agony, and yelling things at the characters. In fact, I nearly tossed the book aside within the first few pages. I don't know why I kept reading. I just did. And so, this book pulled me out of a reading slump.

It's not a very good book. Most of it is predictable and agonizingly childish. The main character - Belly - is just a four year old trapped inside a teenagers body. I wanted to shake her to pieces. But I guess the train wrecks she create became too awful not to look away from. And you know, everyone makes mistakes. So her immaturity and foolishness aside, she was a pretty realistically dumb character.

Both Conrad and Jeremiah, the other two legs of the love triangle, are bland. Jeremiah is the sweet, understanding one. Too bad he's like melted ice cream. And Conrad? He's supposed to be hunky and mysterious. Aloof. A damaged soul, hiding something soft and tender inside. He made me want to punch a wall. I'd probably get through to the wall faster than him. He's like ice cream that's too cold and frozen solid. With both of them, it felt like the author was trying too hard to appeal to the audience. One boy for the readers who love them sweet. Another for the ones who like bad boys. Too bad neither had any personality that made them unique.

And so these are the contents of our love triangle. Oh so tragic. In all honesty, I'm biased against love triangles from the start. The indecision is horrifying in my opinion. But this one seemed worse than most. The one redeeming point of this book is probably Beck and Belly's mother. I like their friendship and how it seem to survive whatever gets thrown at them. They are true best friends forever.

But again, this book had too much romantic drama and goo for me. But it managed to get me out of my reading slump and that is something that matters to me. It's a good summer book. It really captures the feel of ice cream. ...more

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Jun 24, 2013 Jessica rated it it was ok

This book was okay, but it definitely was not very memorable. The mixture of current events and past events makes this story a little confusing. Also, there were illegal drugs and underage drinking in the book that I did not think was necessary to the story line. The character's personalities were not very developed. I was hoping for something exciting to happen in the book, but it never did. ...more

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Jun 04, 2013 Courtney rated it it was ok

Shelves: teens

Not great. I read it for a book club and a reading challenge, otherwise I probably wouldn't have read it. Belly predictably landed her longtime crush after years of filling the little sister slot. Of course she grew up and got hot. To mix this up from your typical summer romance, there is a divorce/cancer subplot. The characters just weren't that interesting to me. I liked Jeremiah the best and he didn't get the girl. ...more

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