I started watching The Summer I Turned Pretty because my twelve-year-old asked to. Like any parent screening content, I hit play, gave it five minutes, and nope. Not for her. At least not my twelve-year-old. But I kept watching anyway. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. It tugged me right back into being fifteen, when a kiss could detonate your entire identity and when a heartbreak felt like the end of civilization.
It also reminded me of Gilmore Girls. Another show built around a girl who is impossibly self-absorbed but somehow adored by an entire town. Everyone rearranges their lives around Rory Gilmore’s course schedule, her crushes, her college essays. Like…really? One small town, that invested in one teenager? But I digress.
Belly is the same problem.
She is sulky, indecisive, reckless. She turns every room into her personal crisis center. And yet, Conrad and Jeremiah act like she’s oxygen. Laurel shields her. Steven defends her. The entire show hinges on her, even though half the time you’re yelling at the screen for her to just sit down and stop making everything about herself.
Some people will argue Conrad is the bad UX here. He’s moody, distant, shut down when all she wants is to “fix” him. He looks like the app that refuses to load. But Conrad isn’t bad UX, the guy is just mourning. He’s processing. He’s not broken; he’s just not available. Belly, on the other hand, keeps jamming herself into the system, demanding it bend to her timeline. That’s not his flaw. That’s hers.
Not everything is about you, Belly. Unless you're in Cousins Beach...then it's absolutely about you, Belly. Which I guess is why she loves it so much.
Conrad broods over her. Jeremiah orbits like a planet. The whole narrative props her up as if she’s the world’s rarest gem instead of a clunky dropdown menu you have to click through just to get to the good parts. She is bad UX. Tedious, bloated, and impossible to avoid. And everyone still swears by her.
Which is why I can’t stop thinking about Taylor.
At first she reads as selfish and loud. But slowly she reveals herself as the rock. The one who says the uncomfortable thing, who drags Belly back to herself, who doesn’t collapse under the weight of her drama. Taylor is the navigation bar that actually works. The well-labeled button that gets you to the thing you came for. She’s not glamorous, but she’s reliable. And she’s what keeps the whole mess functional.
So yes, Conrad looks difficult, Jeremiah looks naïve, butt it’s Belly who keeps breaking the experience and Taylor who keeps saving it.
She’ll probably end up with Conrad. I haven’t read the books, but come on, how could she not? I can picture her in Paris, doing the small, slow work of growing into herself, her edges softening, her UX smoothing out just enough that people stop hitting refresh and actually stay. For now I’ll watch Conrad brood so intensely it makes me want to crawl under the covers for three days and wonder when he will smile again.
