Series Review: Summer Trilogy by Jenny Han

Titles: The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You & We'll Always Have Summer
Author: Jenny Han
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Add to Goodreads: Book 1 | Book 2 | Book 3
Purchase from Amazon: Book 1 | Book 2 | Book 3


Goodreads description for The Summer I Turned Pretty:

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars


For some reason, I didn't review The Summer I Turned Pretty and It's Not Summer Without You when I first read them, so I'm just going to review them along with We'll Always Have Summer. This is a review of all three books, but I might talk about the third one a little more, just because that's the one I read most recently and have the most memory of. But don't worry, no spoilers even if you haven't read any of the books in this series!


I love these books so much, plain and simple - there's just something about them. I love getting lost in Jenny Han's writing! It flows nicely and reads so quickly - none of these books took me longer than two hours to read, since they're almost impossible to put down.


The characters are what's best about this series. It took me a while to get used to Belly, but she grew on me. I don't agree with all of her decisions, but I love her nonetheless. And Conrad and Jeremiah. Oh, Conrad and Jeremiah... *insert major swooning here* I love both of these boys so much - I can't even begin to explain what amazing characters they are. I loved the secondary characters, too - there's a strong family storyline, and I loved reading about Belly's mom and Susannah and even Steven. And I loved Belly's best friend Taylor! 

Seeing these characters develop over the course of three books is great. In We'll Always Have Summer, I liked seeing how much Belly had grown up, as well as the rest of these characters. I especially liked reading about them at college, because, well, I just love when books are set at college!


Another thing that's great about these books is the beach setting. I always love when books are set in beach towns, and the atmosphere in the Summer series is so well-done! I really felt like I was there at the beach alongside the characters, and I'd give anything to go to Cousins.


The Summer books evoked so many emotions in me. They made me happy, sure, but they're not only fun romances - they definitely have some depth, too. I tore up multiple times because of the pure feeling these books convey and all the love I have for the characters. I cry while reading books about grief and stuff like that all the time, but I don't remember ever having cried this much about a love story.


These books are the epitome of summer. I've read a book in the Summer series each summer for the last three years, and I really do believe there'll be something missing next year, when there are no more of these books for me to read. If you haven't read this series yet, what are you waiting for?