The Summer I Turned Pretty Literary Elements

Contemporary young adult fiction

Cousins Beach, early-mid 2000s

First person; narrated both in the present and the past (in form of flashbacks)

Emotional, optimistic, nostalgic

Isabel, or "Belly" is the protagonist

The major conflict arises from Belly's navigation of her feelings for Conrad along with various first experiences, including Jeremiah's confession of his love for her, her fling with Cam, and going to her first parties.

The climax comes when Belly and Conrad kiss, sealing the romantic tension that has bubbled between the two over the course of various summers.

The meeting between Cam and Belly foreshadows Conrad’s mood swings.

N/A

The description of the movie night depicts the sense of sight. The author writes, “My mother, Susannah, Jeremiah, and I watched Susannah's favorite Alfred Hitchcock movies in the rec room with all the lights off.” The imagery is significant because it shows the closeness between Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah.

There is a parallelism between Conrad, Cam, and Jeremiah in that all three express romantic interest in Belly.

Between Conrad and Jeremiah and Conrad and Cam exist further parallels that invite comparisons between each pair. For instance, Jeremiah and Conrad are brothers, and so (as Belly notes) look quite alike. Despite their shared appearances, however, Jeremiah is sweeter, more openly loving, and goofy than the moody, serious, yet irresistibly attractive (for Belly) Conrad. With regards to Conrad and Cam, both characters' names start with the letter "C," and they both share various moments of emotional and physical intimacy with Belly in the novel. However, their personalities differ greatly: Conrad and Belly seem to just "get" each other, sharing tastes, worldviews, and a fundamental understanding of the other that Cam and Belly just don't.