The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Fifteen-year-old Isabel, aka “Belly” has spent almost every summer of her life with her mom, her older brother Steven, her mom’s best friend Susannah,  and Susannah’s two sons Conrad and Jeremiah. Susannah has always been like a second mom to Belly, and Conrad and Jeremiah like another set of brothers. Belly loves the weathered old beach house, all the silly traditions she and the boys have maintained over the years, and the fact that nothing ever changes. Until this summer. This is the summer when things get confusing. This is the summer when divorce, sickness, and hurt feelings turn sunny days dark. This is the summer of first loves, second kisses and Belly finally admitting to herself which boy she loves more than just as a family friend. Because this is the summer Belly turns pretty and the whole world turns upside down. “Every summer up to this one, I believed it’d be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was. I was.”  It’s good to know I still retain my tender teenage heart, which ached terribly upon finishing Belly’s story, a bittersweetly familiar one for any girl who ever fell in love between June, July or August.  More than just a cute candy beach book (although Han’s prose is as compulsively readable as the bag of Skittles one of her characters can’t stop popping), it has more in common with the multifaceted brand of chick lit penned by authors like Sarah Dessen, Justina Chen Headley and up and comer Sarah Ockler.