You didn’t have to be a Jenny Han fan or even know what Cousins Beach was, but by mid-June you probably knew someone who was glued to The Summer I Turned Pretty. By the time the first season premiered, it wasn’t just another teen drama. It was marketed with teasers and trailers dropped with carefully chosen Taylor Swift songs.

 “The music made me like the show more because of the song choices,” stated Payton Geary, a Summer I Turned Pretty follower. “I saw trailers and ads for it on TikTok and on Amazon Prime. I decided to start watching since I had a lot of free time.”

In the summer of 2022 season 1 was dropped, and quickly became the number one show on Prime Video all in the same weekend. Fast forward to the present, season 3 has earned 25 million global viewers within its first week of release. “I believe it’s worth the hype because it’s really captivating,” said Geary. “Once you start it you need to finish it”.

Since the book series was released, there were some tweaks added to the show version to dramatize and entice the newer generation and the audience in general to start watching. 

“The show kept the word choices and slang that a typical person of the characters’ age would use. Although it sometimes felt awkward, it was not as out of place as it would have been in other shows. It did a good job keeping things recent,” Geary continued. “It stuck out to me that so many people of different ages and interests all watched the show.”

At the end of the day, it was one of those shows that everyone seemed to be watching. While some people had different opinions, whether it be what team they’re on or their favorite season, everyone was glued to their screens this summer. It’s now easy to see why the show gained popularity so quickly.