Jenny Han's final installment in smash-hit YA series The Summer I Turned Pretty did what was once considered impossible: turning cheesy, self-indulgent romance into existential horror. How can one achieve such a feat? Well, by masterfully crafting a mind-numbing plot and impressively unlikeable characters, Han forced me to confront my own mortality at the geriatric age of nineteen. While at one point in my life I might have squealed at my favourite “team” being chosen on the novel’s final pages, instead, I felt the uncontainable urge to smack Belly Conklin upside the head. When one finds themselves relating best to the protagonist’s mother, they must come to terms with the fact that their teenagedom has fleeted. I am an old woman, and this I must accept. 

Now, for my main complaints. The novel’s entire premise is that in order to make up for a drunken spring break stint, Jeremiah promises to marry Belly in a ceremony the following summer. The purpose of this? Not even the novel can explain it in a way that is convincing enough. Effectively, both Belly and Jeremiah believe that their newfound entry into the age of majority makes them capable of sustaining a marriage, and that they are so in love (despite being broken up a few months prior), that they have to make these vows immediately. None of the adults in their lives approve, but there are no real attempts to stop them. I guess Laurel tried her best, but Han did not give her much development beyond being the grieving, aloof mother, so her disapproval did very little. See, given that Belly and Jeremiah still converse as if they are thirteen, (and that is the average age of The Summer I Turned Pretty’s readers), I don’t understand why Han chose wedding planning to be the novel’s main focus. What makes the series' first two novels work is the engaging sub-plots about the main gang’s adventures. Readers of all ages love stories of silly summer fun mixed with the push-and-pull of a teenage love triangle. Listening to two stupid, broke college kids plan a wedding for two hundred pages while the bride-to-be secretly pines for the groom’s brother? I’ll pass. 

Look, it was obvious that the Chosen One would be Conrad from the start. Yet, Han could have created more doubt in the reader’s mind throughout all of the waffling. Belly and Jeremiah were so obviously miserable I spent the second half of the novel begging Han to put this dying dog out of its misery. Do we need to hear about every detail of the wedding’s logistics? I don’t care that Mr. Fisher is paying for the lobster rolls- does Belly know she’s supposed to love the man she’s marrying? 

To me, We’ll Always Have Summer is a sloppy ending to the Fisher-Conklin tale, which does not do the series justice. I would have loved another epic summer tale which bids these characters adieu in an age-appropriate manner. If I have anything to show for the one star I gave this novel, it is that the infinity motif tying Belly and Conrad together was the closest this book got me to squealing.