There’s something so alluring about The Summer I Turned Pretty. Watching the show feels like looking into a hazy capsule that holds our memories in suspension, letting us relive a summer that never really belonged to us but still feels deeply familiar. I kept wondering why I was so drawn to it, why I would find myself rewatching old episodes and seasons again and again, and I think I finally understood. It’s the way the show pulls you in, not just into its world but into the thoughts, emotions, and perspective of its main character, Belly Conklin.

Belly is an unreliable narrator.

That’s what makes her story so captivating—we start to see the world the way she does. Cousins Beach looks too perfect, every interaction with the boys feels tinted with meaning, and every mistake feels poetic. It’s that soft, filtered storytelling that blurs the line between what’s real and what’s remembered, the kind that makes you question whether you’re seeing the truth or just the version of it she needs to believe in.

Belly’s world is built on illusion, and it’s one we all once believed in. It’s the kind where love is proof enough, where overthinking is just another form of caring, and where you don’t yet know that life can take things from you. We’ve all built our own versions of Cousins Beach in our heads, places where everything felt simple before reality started to seep through the edges.

That transformation is depicted in such a subtle, genius way through Belly’s narration. We hear her voice all through Season 1, most of Season 2, and then barely at all in Season 3. It allows us to feel how she’s slowly losing her grip on that dreamy version of her world. By the time Season 3 arrives, the magic has begun to fade. Reality starts to speak louder. Life catches up to her and forces her to take off those rose-colored glasses. It’s a sobering shift, but it can also be a beautiful one.

We’ve all experienced this in our own ways, the moment when the world starts to shift before we’re ready to move with it. While it doesn’t always feel like it, the future is often built by our choices. We can either relinquish our agency or take control of what’s ahead and learn to find the same wonder in reality that we once found in the dream. It’s something Steven Conklin captures beautifully in his graduation speech when he quotes Susannah:

"There are times when it feels like the world is happening to you, but remember, you are happening to the world too. So don’t wait. Make what you want happen, because tomorrow isn’t promised, so you better make sure you’re living today.”

I think that’s why I keep watching. Because The Summer I Turned Pretty lets me step back into that world, the one that’s perfectly imperfect, drenched in nostalgia, and still shimmering with the promise that even after everything, we will always have summer.

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Image Credit: Erika Doss/Amazon Studios