The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer, #1)

by Jenny Han

My whole life was measured in summers. Like I don’t really begin living until June, until I’m at that beach, in that house.

Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It’s like you see them through a special lens—but maybe if it’s how you see them, that’s how they really are. It’s like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.

winning was always important, and doubly so because I was a girl and was never expected to win anything. Victory is a thousand times sweeter when you’re the underdog.

For me there was—is—nothing better than walking on the beach late at night. It feels like you could walk forever, like the whole night is yours and so is the ocean. When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can’t say in real life. In the dark you can feel really close to a person. You can say whatever you want.

“Best friends are important. They’re the closest thing to a sister you’ll ever have,”

It’s hard to throw away history. It was like you were throwing away a part of yourself.

He made it so hard not to love him. When he was sweet like this, I remembered why I did. Used to love him, I mean. I remembered everything.

I wondered if this was the way old crushes died, with a whimper, slowly, and then, just like that—gone.

The old pull, the tide drawing me back in. I kept getting caught in this current—first love, I mean. First love kept making me come back to this, to him. He still took my breath away, just being near him. I had been lying to myself the night before, thinking I was free, thinking I had let him go. It didn’t matter what he said or did, I’d never let him go.

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) / it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.”