The second season of Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” based off the book series by Jenny Han, released on July 14 – a big day for #BookTok users and fans of cheesy teen TV shows.
Four episodes of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” have been released so far, with a new episode coming out each week.
As the No. 1 show on Prime Video, you would think that feedback about the show is mostly positive. But after each episode releases, most of the social media posts from viewers are just reactions to the cringiest, worst parts of the show.
The show centers around the main character, Isabel “Belly” Conklin’s love triangle between two brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher.
Since this romance is the main focus of the show, fans post a lot about which brother they think is better and the romantic scenes Belly shares with each brother.
But I have never seen so many posts about how awkward and cringeworthy a TV show is before (except maybe “Riverdale”).
Do a quick scroll through social media after each episode airs and you’ll see content about the actors’ delivery of their lines, the weird dialogue that tries too hard to be relatable to Gen Z and how hard it is to look at Jeremiah’s eyes during his scenes.
Obviously teenagers are the target audience for shows like this, but just because a show is about teenagers, why does it mean that it needs to be cringe?
“The Summer I Turned Pretty” addresses really complex subjects: death, familial issues, mental health and sexuality. But in the same show, it also includes scenes like Jeremiah’s god awful dance moment in Season 1.
Maybe fans shouldn’t expect so much out of a show about teenage romance, but that’s what we’re all here for – to watch unrealistic and unrelatable drama unfold on screen. Name one person you know that has fallen in love with two brothers AND got to visit a giant beach house every summer.
Even though the audience clearly doesn’t like the awkward scenes and dialogue, none of us can look away. “The Summer I Turned Pretty” can be cringey, but ultimately it’s a fun and lighthearted series that I feel is a definite upgrade from the books, which is what makes it enjoyable to watch despite the pain of it all.
If only teen dramas understood that they don’t have to force characters to use slang every five seconds for the audience to remember, “Hey, these are teenagers,” it would improve these types of shows drastically.
Then again, if there were no cringe parts, what would people talk about on social media?