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65 pages 2 hours read

Jenny Han

We'll Always Have Summer

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011

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Background

Series Context: The Summer Trilogy

Han’s Summer trilogy tells the story of Belly Conklin’s relationship with the two Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah. In the three novels, Belly learns important lessons about growing up and the power of first love, and she makes difficult decisions, knowing that she cannot have everything that she wants.

In the first book, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly introduces the most important setting in the series, Cousins Beach, and the family that ties her so closely to it: Susannah Fisher and her sons, Conrad and Jeremiah. This novel explores Belly’s coming of age as she navigates her long-time crush on the older brother, Conrad, burgeoning feelings for the younger brother, Jeremiah, and a summer romance with another local boy, Cam. At the novel’s end, Susannah reveals that she has been diagnosed with cancer for a second time, and this time, it’s more aggressive. Belly and Conrad share their first kiss, setting the stage for their romance to develop over the next two novels.

The second novel, It’s Not Summer Without You, takes place the following summer. Susannah has recently died after a long fight with cancer. The characters cope with Susannah’s passing differently, but they are brought together again when Conrad returns to the house at Cousins Beach to prevent his father from selling it. This brings Belly and Jeremiah back to Cousins as well. Belly is anxious to see Conrad again: After dating during the six months leading up to Susannah’s death, Belly and Conrad broke up at prom. Still hurt from their breakup, Belly explodes in anger at Conrad at his mother’s funeral, resulting in a steely stand-off between the two.

In this novel, Jeremiah is also a perspective character, which gives the reader deeper insight into his feelings for Belly. As Jeremiah watches Belly pine for Conrad, his resentment toward his brother grows, and the novel’s climactic moment features Jeremiah kissing Belly after confessing his feelings for her. Belly kisses Jeremiah back until Conrad interrupts them. Belly and Conrad are forced to confront their breakup, and, in the process, Conrad nearly confesses his true feelings for Belly but lets her down once again, unable to be vulnerable. This time, however, Belly makes an important decision: She can no longer settle for the kind of love Conrad is willing to give her. Belly turns her back on Conrad and goes instead to Jeremiah, beginning a relationship with him that will carry through to the events of the final novel in the series.

The final book in the series, We’ll Always Have Summer, takes place two years after the events of It’s Not Summer Without You. Belly assures herself that her feelings for Conrad are in the past and that Jeremiah is her present and future. Jeremiah proposes marriage to Belly after she discovers that Jeremiah has been unfaithful to her. This inciting event sets the rest of the text in motion because Belly moves to the Cousins Beach house to plan her wedding. She discovers that Conrad is living there too, and throughout the summer, Belly and Conrad rekindle their suppressed feelings for each other.

Han sets the stage for Belly and Conrad’s eventual union by making Conrad a perspective character in the third novel. For the first time, readers gain insight into the depths of Conrad’s love for Belly, why he thought he had to give her up, and why he struggled for so long to tell her how he really feels. At the end of this novel, Conrad confesses how much he loves her, and Belly must confront once and for all her feelings: whether she wants to be with Jeremiah or whether she wants to risk everything to be with Conrad, her first love.

The Summer trilogy has always been about Belly’s journey of self-discovery as she tries to find love. Across all three novels is the belief that true love does wait, across time, space, and distance, as Belly and Conrad prove in their triumphant final scene, running into the water together, newly married.

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