Read an extract from: The Summer I Turned Pretty
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Synopsis
Everything that happened this past summer, and every summer before it, has all led up to this. To now.
Every year Isabel spends a perfect summer at her family friends' house. There's the swimming pool at night, the private stretch of sandy beach . . . and the two boys. Unavailable, aloof Conrad - who she's been in love with forever - and friendly, relaxed Jeremiah, the only one who's ever really paid her any attention.
But this year something is different. They seem to have noticed her for the first time. It's going to be an amazing summer - and one she'll never forget . . .
Customer Review: 20 November 2012Interview
Place of birth and birthday?
3rd September. Richmond, Virginia.
What is your favourite book?
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
What is your favourite song?
My forever favourite is Tangerine by Led Zeppelin. My recent favourite is Samson by Regina Spektor.
What is your favourite film?
Bridget Jones’s Diary is like a bowl of hot soup for my soul. I also love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Clueless.
What is your favourite food?
Fried chicken with all the fixings
What is your favourite memory?
Sitting in my grandpa’s lap and poking at his whiskers.
What is your most treasured possession?
My bubble gum pink vintage typewriter
When did you start writing?
Age 6
What is your favourite place in the world and why?
The beach at night—it’s both quiet and loud. When I am at the beach, I feel utterly content, like all is right in the world.
What is your favourite way to spend a day?
Waking up late, eating eggs and toast for breakfast, visiting all my favourite blogs, meeting friends for lunch and shopping, then maybe a movie, then dinner, then coming home and admiring all my purchases, then a snack, then lazing about before bedtime.
What makes a perfect summer?
A perfect summer is a summer that is equal parts lazy and adventuresome. Like, a week at the beach doing nothing but reading and eating ice cream, then later on in the summer, a week travelling in a country where you don’t speak the language. Also, there must be plenty of pool time, watermelon, and air conditioning. Also at least one summer romance.
And the very burning question: Jeremiah or Conrad?!
Ah! I can’t answer this question. I know who I would pick, but I am not Belly. More importantly, who would you pick?
More
"At parties and on planes, when people ask what I do, I tell them I write young adult novels. Invariably, they will then ask if I draw my own pictures as well. After I explain that no, there are rarely pictures in young adult novels and maybe they are thinking more along the lines of a picture book, they ask if I would ever want to write books for adults. You know, real books.
I have always loved young adult literature, all the way back to when I was one myself. I grew up during somewhat of a golden age of YA—I devoured everything from Lois Duncan to The Babysitters Club to the Nancy Drew Case Files. I read adult books too, as I think all teens do and should, but the teen books, the ones written especially for me, were the ones that stayed with me.
As an adult, I tend to gravitate toward adult fiction with young narrators. To Kill a Mockingbird, I Capture the Castle, two of my favorites, but also books like Gone With the Wind and Rebecca start when the narrators are teenagers, just about to transition into adulthood. The girls are still fresh faced and innocent and haven’t yet learned how to be cynical or hard. They are in bloom.
This moment in a girl’s life was my inspiration for The Summer I Turned Pretty, which is about a girl who goes to the same summer house year after year. My main character is called Belly, short for Isabel. Even her name condescends and strains to keep her a child—it evokes jelly beans and Santa Claus and toddlers with tubby bellies that peek through their undershirts. Like Baby in Dirty Dancing, Belly has always accepted her nickname and her place as the pesky little sister in a house full of boys. Until this summer, when everything changes, much because she has. Finally, finally, she isn’t the baby anymore. Belly is almost sixteen, and it is her turn to be the one the boys look at.
I think every girl gets that one moment where all eyes are on her because almost overnight, she has grown into her body and her beauty. There is a power that young girls wield, and part of the power is not knowing the extent or depth of it. It’s a heady, intoxicating time and it is exciting, but it is also bittersweet, this saying good bye to girlhood. I think this is why books about adolescence are so compelling—coming of age is something everyone must go through, but hardly anyone fully remembers the particulars, the agony and the ecstasy of it all. We need books to remind us."
- Jenny Han
Product details
Format :
Paperback
ISBN: 9780141330532
Size : 129 x 198mm
Pages : 288
Published : 03 Jun 2010
Publisher : Razorbill
Other formats for The Summer I Turned Pretty:
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The Summer I Turned Pretty
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