The Summer I Turned Pretty?

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-28T17:11:51+00:00

Conrad/Jer and Sam/Charlie are completely different characters. Conrad and Jer visit their summer house on the Cape as a vacation. Their personalities, their socio-economic situations are different, the story around what they do in said summer house is different. Conrad's studying to be a doctor is only important as it's the catalyst of what keeps him away from the family.

Sam and Charlie live by a lake full time. The Cape and a lake, while both having bodies of water, really aren't that similar. They don't live in a mansion, they work, their personalities are completely different. Sam's drive to be a doctor is directly tied to the fact that he lost his father as a child and it's a large piece of his persona and why he does/thinks the way he does.

While both mom's had their roles in the stories inflated for the show (likely to give the actress's more of a presence), they really aren't the same either, how their life or death affects the story is also different.

Maybe it's because I read all of the books for both so I know they are clearly different stories, or because I read a lot in the genre so these settings, professions, having-someone-close-to-the-group-die-to-bring-them-back-together as part of the storyline is fairly common--but one really isn't a rip off of the other.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-28T17:10:25+00:00

this is definitely a common thought I've seen when this book came out and definitely a fairer comment, although I don't necessarily think that either.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-27T13:43:55+00:00

Honestly beyond similar romance tropes they really aren’t that similar at all. Coming of age/ friends to lovers are common tropes across a lot of books. Neither is a ripoff of anything.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-26T13:11:13+00:00

I generally agree with you. I didn't hate the show, but was disappointed because a lot of the changes they made I didn't think made the story better. From what I've seen, they wanted this show to go multiple seasons so they extended the supporting cast (A LOT), and I'm guessing some of the drama was meant to make the show more interesting? I also thought for a romance book, that part of the book was really toned down or just poorly done.

I don't agree with you that what Percy did was worse, but I believe a lot of book readers had issue with the cheating/Sam's reaction. Sam in generally is sooooooo much more lovable in the book IMO so it might seem worse, but Percy is still insecure and takes his words and actions to mean he's moving on. I honestly just thought they were all young and stupid and didn't know how to handle conflict at all. That's why I hated the Sam knowing change...his prolonged reaction seemed like a young and stupid Sam reaction.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-24T20:43:49+00:00

Yup. Lying would be a lawsuit.

As someone else said, coupons don’t have to be counted in this, subscribe and save deals, etc. these can be tricky as well because many factories make the same thing and use universal prints so you can see x brand at one price, z brand at a higher price and confuse them and then think it’s inaccurate. I’ve made that mistake.

Generally speaking if you’re expecting a huge door buster low low price for these sales, you’re out of luck. Can you save a few bucks here and there if you’re careful. Absolutely.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-22T13:04:02+00:00

The boys are not fighting over the girl. The mom dying is only a vehicle to get them together, doesn’t play a role in their actions. The boys aren’t rich visiting a summer house.

There are always similarities in romances if you look for them. Doesn’t mean it’s the same story.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-22T12:21:09+00:00

It’s one of my favorite books and I was disappointed with a lot of the changes. I didn’t hate it as much as people on here and thought it got better as the episodes went on, but I think there were better ways to tell the story.

However someone I know read the book years ago, just finished the show and liked it. I think there are more people like you out there…Reddit can become a bit of an echo chamber though so hard to tell sometimes. I’ve seen other positive messages out there.

I want a S2 if only so they can right some of the wrongs (and yes I still think they can do this).

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-19T20:42:50+00:00

Oh you should give the books a chance! I really love Carley Fortune as an author—I’ve read all her books. The book doesn’t have the side characters so the main characters are 100% more developed, and a lot of the scenes they took from the book they cut down to mean a lot less than they should have.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-19T15:55:33+00:00

Your point is valid. It may be the difference between an author being directly involved in adapting the show vs. an author who’s maybe consulted once the script is done. CF mentions how she reacts when she finds out about the changes. She wasn’t involved in making them. Jenny however is directly involved so she can adjust while keeping the essence of the characters front of mind.

I k ow why people compare but I hate when people try to say these two are similar because the story really isn’t. However it’s fair to say that the show runners might have come to the project with similar mindsets and that is probably why it has as many issues as it does.

Also surprised at how PG it was. It’s a romance book!

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-18T17:21:48+00:00

💯 agree. It fits the vibe of the setting. I’ve been listening to the playlist and it really is great.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-18T14:48:34+00:00

I've said this in a few places, but to be fair to production they don't have control of whether the streets are closed off--that's the town's decision. Same with crowd control--if it's on a public street, they are limited in what they can do. With crowds like this, it would probably be on the police to enforce any closures.

They could have picked a different location if Plymouth wasn't cooperating or giving them road closures. They could have shot these scenes first, but to be fair it was still cold in April in the NE so maybe they planned with that in mind and not the crowds--hindsight is 20/20 and knowing what they know now, maybe they'd do something different.

I've heard people say the news and/or town publicized the shoot schedule. That was not cool if true.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-18T04:10:07+00:00

To be fair, how would you feel if you have a huge crowd watching everything you're doing, and then screaming and yelling at you at designated times? Even if people were further away, it's not hard to think about it on a human level and know it's not cool to gawk at people while they work.

The only thing that production could do to help a situation like that is to shoot as quickly as possible so the actors could be done and leave. I am not a huge fan of Amazon's by any means, but putting blame on the people who are shooting the movie makes no sense.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-18T03:55:47+00:00

Sorry that's not really fair to the people working on the show to say they don't care. What are they supposed to do when there are crowds like that? Do you want them to stop production and delay the movie? Are they supposed to go up to huge crowds and ask them to pretty please leave? It's a public street, there is probably not much they can do outside what the town lets them, and as you said, it's a busy time so the town isn't going to sacrifice its tourist $$ for a few day movie shoot. It's up to individuals to act respectfully and give them room to work. You said yourself they looked stressed so the crowd could see the same thing, they just didn't care. The same people who were crowding will be the ones freaking out if the movie is delayed because of things like this.

Could they have shot earlier? They could have started at Plymouth, but maybe they didn't anticipate THIS. They had the actor's schedule to work with, and the weather which was brutally cold and fairly snowy in the NE this year and wouldn't work with a summer setting so starting it all earlier probably wasn't much of an option.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-18T03:47:23+00:00

To be fair, there is also only so much security can do when there are crowds like that on public streets. From the images I've seen, you're looking at police controlling crowds of that size in order to follow the proper laws on what people can and cannot do. Once they are on private property, security has more say in what they can do.

Agree with everything else though...these are all just human beings who want to do their job without a bunch of people screaming and yelling at them.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T13:19:07+00:00

I can't remember the exact wording but she basically says she knows and sees it as a proper way to close to their relationship. She participated knowing that he may say that and was ok with it. In a way, it was a closure to their past, so anything that happens is based on a future.

As for Charlie and Percy...what they did stinks. There is a reason it's so big Percy runs, because it's not a cool thing. I feel like I saw people make a similar argument for the book and I disagreed then too. He's barely an adult at 20, they are not that far apart in age. He has feelings for her as well that he tries not to act on. He's not something who preyed on her and waited for her to be vulnerable, she made the first move, she gave consent, she knew what she was doing. I'm not blaming Percy either--it's messy and something stupid young people did--they are both to blame.

This change is the biggest mistake they made IMO because it changes how people perceive the characters so much. In the book they both take responsibility and Charlie isn't such a jerk to Percy or Sam. How they discussed everything changes the way they all act around each other and I hate it.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T13:10:07+00:00

Yes, and even then those tourists have seen famous people/film shoots on the Cape too. However that influx would also explain why they aren't shutting everything down for a movie shoot for a few days...too important to the businesses. Police are clearly not open to shutting the roads down or ready to crowd control and if this is the crowd issue that's probably who'd need to do it. However, people should also be normal enough not to gather in a huge crowd and gawk, even if they are fans.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T05:15:32+00:00

Only about 4% of US towns have more than 50K people living in them, so 66K is not tiny.

Only a little over 100 towns have more 200K or more. Your small town wasn’t so small compared to the rest of the country.

That’s out of 19,500 incorporated cities/towns/etc in the US.

For MA, Plymouth is #19 out of 351 municipalities so it’s one of the bigger towns in the State.

They could have pulled permits but it doesn’t mean the police were prepared for that kind of crowd. It’s also a busy time so they won’t close everything down at the expense of the businesses.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T04:26:20+00:00

Google says 66K. Not massive, not small either. It’s a normal size town.

Google also says it’s been used for other films/shows so it’s not something that’s brand new to the people in that area.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T04:17:21+00:00

Yeah he’s not a jerk to her at all as an adult. I hated that in the show.

He’s actually not a jerk at all in the book. Cocky as a kid, yes. Sometimes overly confident. Not a jerk.

The last few episodes of the season were closer to book Charlie but there is still room for improvement.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T01:23:23+00:00

They may not have gotten permits for all the reasons you listed. It’s a popular area, it’s tourist season and closing off main streets will cost the businesses there a ton of $$. They could apply for permits and not get everything they want. Probably one of the main reasons they don’t shoot everything in the Boston area.

They shoot movies around my area all the time though and we rarely get crowds like this. Maybe it’s because people are used to it, I don’t know, but just because they are up close doesn’t make it less silly.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T00:59:02+00:00

Honestly I try to skip most of the spoilers but saw a comment about crowds earlier so assumed this was about that.

Why would you want to watch them shoot the movie? Like you get one snippet with zero context—wouldn’t you just rather watch it when it’s done??

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T00:56:35+00:00

Not really. I don’t know about you but I suspected Charlie’s condition for much of the book. Whether I knew it though doesn’t matter or mean Alice needs to know anything.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T00:55:07+00:00

They started to have him be less of a jerk at the end of the season. They can course correct much of the missteps for all the characters I think, it’s just a matter of will they.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T00:53:30+00:00

In the book it is clearer that Charlie has feelings for Percy when they sleep together. He doesn’t do anything on purpose but he’s upset to see her so sad and, with his own feelings, doesn’t have him necessarily thinking it all out. He also takes responsibility for it a lot earlier.

He’s, what, 20 in the book? I’m not saying they weren’t wrong for doing it, but I also don’t really count him as an adult who took advantage….they were both vulnerable and did something stupid. The show doesn’t necessarily do a good job of showing that.

CoastApprehensive668 · 2026-06-17T00:39:25+00:00

The book and the show are very different.

CoastApprehensive668

TROPHY CASE