After its Amazon Prime release in the summer, The Summer I Turned Pretty, also known as TSITP, quickly made its way into many people’s TikTok feeds due to the series’ popularity. The Prime Original is based on the best-selling New York Times trilogy by Jenny Han and features a cast of fairly new stars including Lola Tung, Christopher Briney, and Gavin Casalengo.
The trilogy written in 2009 focuses on Isabel “ Belly” Conklin and her life at her mom’s friend Beck’s summer house in the fictional town of Cousins Beach. The Conklins and Fischers have been going to the house since before Belly was born. Belly has one older brother named Steven and Beck has 2 boys, Conrad and Jeremiah, who are Belly’s love interests throughout the book along with Cam, played by David Iacono.
The love interests in the series are a major reason why the show became so popular on Tiktok. The #teamconrad and #teamjeremiah quickly gained lots of views and skyrocketed the show’s popularity, which in turn increased book sales.
The show and book have many similarities as Jenny Han, the author of the book, was an executive producer in the Prime Original series and even showed up as an extra throughout the first season. While a lot of the book is accurately portrayed in the series, there have been some modifications to enhance the show’s appeal to teens. In the book, readers only know Belly’s thoughts which are in her head, but in the show, they get a look into what the other characters are thinking and experiencing.
One major difference in the book is that there isn’t the debutante ball, which is a very prominent component in the series and is a pivotal moment in the love triangle of the show. What ends up happening with the ball is another reason why the show went viral on TikTok and led people to choose if they were Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah.
Yet another difference between the book and the series is that in the book Cam, one of Belly’s three love interests, breaks up with her. He does this because he can tell that she isn’t truly in love with him and is actually in love with someone else. However, in the series, they chose to have Belly break up with him because she realizes that for herself.
Even though the book and Prime Original series aren’t exactly the same, they both portray the storyline in the same manner and have the same mood. Thanks to social media, TikTok in particular, both the Prime Original series and the book series have skyrocketed in sales. The book series consists of three books so three seasons of the series are practically guaranteed, with most viewers hoping for even more.
The second season of TSITP is anticipated to come out in June or July 2023, if watchers hope to get a sneak peek of what might be to come, they can read the next books in the series, It’s Not Summer Without You and We’ll Always Have Summer.
