Parents give teens wine with dinner once. 💌 While I’m glad to see that Jenny Han as improved as a writer over time, I would still recommend her To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy over this one.A teen smokes cigarettes several times. If you’re looking for a girl-next-door summer romance type of book, I would recommend you go with On the Fenceby Kasie West, Small Town Heartsby Lillie Vale, or Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson instead. “It was a summer I’d never, ever forget.It was the summer everything began. For example, *spoiler* at one point, Belly asks a guy to go skinny dipping with her, and when he refuses, she asks “Are you gay?” This just left me with a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the story. The casual use of homophobic language and unnecessary girl-on-girl hate contributed to a toxic masculinity and heteronormative culture that was idolized rather than challenged.

It may be because she wants to convey the inner thoughts of a misinformed teen, but I still don’t think it should’ve been included. The characters would consistently use one another with ulterior motives, and none of the couples felt like a cohesive partnership.Īs much as I love Jenny Han’s writing in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, I do have to acknowledge that a lot of the casual dialogue in this book was rather…problematic. There was nothing swoon-worthy about him!! The “romance” was difficult to support because it was riddled with miscommunication and love triangles. 🙃 Conrad was meant to be the brooding bad boy in this story, but he was equally as selfish and immature as Belly. We’re supposed to fall in love with the oh-so-swoony Conrad because he drinks and punches walls and gets into fights…but this dude has as much personality as a brick. “Moments, when lost, can’t be found again. Every single thought that goes through her mind is centered around “ME! ME! ME!!” I have never read a character who was more out of touch, 🙄 throwing away close female friendships due to boy drama, disrespecting her parents, and always refocusing the conversation on her. While I understand that teens in YA novels have every right to act as teens (because they should), I just could not stand Belly as a main character-she was extremely judge-y and superficial with an internal monologue that made me cringe.

The summer i turned pretty second book