The third and final season of book-to-screen favourite, The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han was released this summer. The final installment has been much-anticipated, fans placing their bets on ‘Team Jeremiah’ or ‘Team Conrad’ – which of Belly’s childhood best friends, incidentally brothers, will she end up with?
The final season ties up some loose ends – Conrad and Jeremiah make up, on-and-off couple Taylor and Steven find their way back to each other and Belly, after some whirlwind moves, finally chooses Conrad. As viewers, we get what we want. But for a story reaching for the same stereotypical plotlines, what’s so different about this one?
You can get away with cliches when your audience has grown so attached to the characters that they can excuse yet another love triangle or wedding that breaks up at the altar, another American in Paris with a bob and a post-revelation, running-though-the-station scene. From the page to the screen, young audiences have found themselves with the Conklins and the Fishers for more than a decade, with the first The Summer I Turned Pretty novel coming out in 2009. And with the series putting faces to names, the attachment to the characters only grows.
Unlike previous fictional love triangles – Gilmore Girls, Vampire Diaries or Hunger Games, to name a few – this series sees the debate happen in real time. No better marketing than the likes of Jennifer Lawrence weighing on what team she’s on (Team Jeremiah, disappointingly).
Another reason we can’t look away? Rage-baiting. This tactic truly strengthens with the final season, when sweet Belly, the girl we’ve watched grow up and come into her own incidentally makes some of the worst life choices over the course of ten episodes. Critics may find this out of character – would Belly realistically go against the advice of her beloved friends and family to get married at 21? For others, there was solid entertainment in each episode’s twists and turns, no matter how unrealistic.
Ultimately, as Belly and Conrad find their happy ending, the show achieves its aim in getting people talking, arguing for their pick of the brothers and ripping into the main character’s outrageous life decisions – all the right elements for a binge and a rewatch.
