The Summer I Turned Pretty, By Jenny Han

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Have you ever felt like your past is a bitter feeling in you and is just lingering along with you? In the novel The Summer I Turned Pretty, author Jenny Han proves that the past doesn’t define who you are through powerful words and critical scenes describing how people feel, such as Belly’s inner thinking, to situations where she feels like her bitter feelings about her past are still with her today. Belly also struggles with jealousy from her best friend, Taylor. Taylor is a girly girl and super pretty and gets all the boy's attention, and Belly struggles with her appearance when she is near Taylor. She doesn't like how her brother, Conard, and Jeriemah always turn and look at her whenever she walks by. She hated how Taylor always got the …show more content…

I think we should go to the boardwalk too.’ Turning to Conard and Steven, he added, ‘Right Guys?’ Normally I would have been thrilled that any of them wanted to go somewhere I was going, but not this time. I knew it wasn’t for me.” (Han 90) Han reveals to the readers how Belly is struggling with having Taylor always getting their attention and stealing her guy friends from her. This relates to the theme of a strong emotion/ feeling from the past, like bitterness. Belly has a bitter feeling towards her past and how it is still lingering around her today. Taylor is a great example of this bitter feeling towards Belly’s past because Belly struggles with not being able to get the boy's attention, never really having a boyfriend and only being in the “friend zone” with Jeremiah and Conard. She never really noticed it until they got a little older and she was hanging with Taylor a little more. Belly never minded just being friends with them until Taylor came along and stole all of the spotlight from her, Belly believes it from her past and how she looked and acted, she is afraid that they will always see her as an annoying little 12-year-old

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