We'll Always Have Summer- Jenny Han
We'll Always Have Summer, the third and final book following The Summer I Turned Pretty, and It's Not Summer Without You, starts off with eighteen year old Belly, her longtime best friend,Taylor,and her new college roommate, Anika,studying for their last final of their freshman year at Fitch University. Her boyfriend of two years has been Jeremiah Fisher, the brother of Conrad, Belly's first love (and first heartbreak), and the son of Susannah, who passed away of cancer two years before. The Fisher's are Belly's summer family that she had spent every summer with in Cousins Beach, up until college, at their summer house.Since Conrad and Belly's winter romance fizzed off two years ago and Conrad went off to college, Belly has been dating Jeremiah, her lifelong best friend. Shortly after the last final, Belly heads to Jeremiah's fraternity's party, in celebration of the end of the school year. Belly isn't exactly comfortable there, as everyone is drinking or already drunk, and the only person she knows well is, of course, Jeremiah. After the party goes on, Belly is walking to the bathrooms when she hears this girl she barely knows, Lacie, and a few others gossiping in the girls' bathroom. After confronting Jeremiah up in his dorm room, Belly learns that not only did Lacie and Jeremiah hook up over their one week breakup, but that he also had sex with her. After Belly slapped Jeremiah, she begin to sob over the realization that Lacie had experienced things with Jeremiah that she had never experienced before with anyone. After a few depressing days sitting in bed alone, Jeremiah, seemingly caught in a moment of desperation, proposed to Belly. After a few minutes of being still angry and shocked, Belly agreed to marry Jeremiah. In a few days, at their families' reunion in Cousins Beach, Jeremiah and Belly announced their engagement. Everyone was in shock, and their parents only strongly disapproved, trying to convince them to not. Conrad left right after the lunch, seemingly upset and angry. Due to her mom not supporting the marriage at this age whatsoever, Taylor was who Belly had to do wedding planning and shopping with. Belly felt through all this planning this empty feeling, knowing in the back of her mind that wedding stuff is something you're supposed to be doing with your supportive mother, not your best friend. To clear her head from her disapproving mother and the stress that came with her, Belly headed off to stay the family summer house in Cousins Beach; the one place where she felt at home. The day she gets there she finds something out- Conrad is spending the summer there, too. Belly convinces herself that she'll be too busy planning the wedding to hardly even see Conrad, allowing herself to stay. The wedding planning gets more and more stressful, and the more Belly, deep,deep, inside realizes that it isn't the right thing to do. Though as the wedding stress comes to the surface of her, so does her ever-present, yet pushed to the very back feelings for Conrad that she's had her whole life. A few days before the wedding, Conrad knows that it's now or never before he confronts Belly with the fact that he's in love with her, but when he does, she only tells him that it's too late; his chances are over and he's not who he wants, though somewhere deep inside knows that that's all a lie and that she is completely in love with him. However, on the morning of their wedding day, Jeremiah finally asks Belly what he's known all along; the fact that she's still in love with Conrad, and always will be. Though Belly at first denies this, she finally admits it. The wedding is canceled after Belly realized that this whole wedding wasn't right. It was a moment of panic in Jeremiah, and it didn't feel right from the start, but however, she knew that if she wanted to, Jeremiah would've married her that day, but she knew that wasn't what she truly wanted. The book ends on a note of the future; Belly and Conrad, who had known each other forever and through it all been in love, were together for infinity.
Belly is tall, brown-haired girl with ever deep brown eyes, who has gotten herself into one of those situations where she knew all along it didn't feel all the way right. Belly has a soft spot for Jeremiah in the beginning, but she has always been in love with Conrad, though many times she's tried to convince herself otherwise. A quote from Belly to support this analysis that she's always been in love with Conrad but denies it is this one: "When I saw his face turning to look at me, I felt a rush of love coming to me, but had brushed it off as fast as it had come." This quote shows how Belly is in love with Conrad, yet tries to push the feeling away. When Belly finds out Jeremiah hooked up with Lacie, she drops to the lowest point of sadness and and anger, all within seconds, showing her feeling betrayed. A quote to support this analysis of Belly being betrayed is this one: "The fact that she (Lacie) knew him in a way that I didn't yet, had experienced something with him that I hadn't; that felt like the biggest betrayal of all." This quote supports my analysis of Belly feeling betrayed as she was left in complete, utter shock of being so deeply hurt by the boy who she thought of as so innocent; he couldn't hurt a fly, much less have sex over their one week breakup. After a few depressing days leaving bed no more than once or twice, feeling more betrayed than ever, Belly was given the shock of her life; she was proposed to by Jeremiah. Belly,throughout this trilogy, has frequently thought things were right in the moment. From dating Cam to push away Conrad, to making out with Jeremiah in his car, to even taking Conrad to prom, despite knowing he wasn't doing it because he wanted to. A quote from Belly to describe this analysis of her having a situation feel right in the moment is this one, written a few minutes after Jeremiah proposed: "He put his arms around me, and we held onto each other, clinging like we were each other's safe harbor. All I could think was, if we could just get through this storm, we will make it. He'd made mistakes, I had too. But we loved each other, and that was what mattered." This quote shows how Belly's personality leads her to feel like things are right in the moment.
Onto the rest of the summary, when Belly decided to return to Cousins Beach to work on wedding plans, her finding out Conrad was staying there resurfaced a kaleidoscope of old feelings and memories. A quote to support this analysis of old feelings resurfacing in Belly is this: "As I walked up the familiar wooden porch and saw Conrad watching TV through the blinds, old forgotten feelings and memories flooded me,and as I worked to push them all away." This quote from Belly portrays her feelings and memories of Conrad all coming back. Belly knew she couldn't hold onto them, she knew that that chapter of her life was over,and she knew she desperately needed to get rid of these memories and feelings that Conrad and Cousins Beach seemed to automatically resurface. Finally, the morning before the wedding, Belly knew she had to accept the knowing that this wedding wasn't right. No one could replace Conrad, and she knew she had to accept that. A quote from Belly is this one she said right after Jeremiah asked her if she still had feelings for Conrad: "I wanted to tell him no. I opened my mouth. Why wouldn't the words come out? Why couldn't I just say what he needed to hear? It would be so easy to just say it. One word and this would all go away. He wanted to forgive me and forget it all. I could see it in his face: All he needed was for me to say no. He would still marry me if I would just say the word. One word." This quote from Belly supports my analysis that she knows it isn't right, because she replied "Yes" after thinking that. As in yes, she still loved Conrad. Belly, after finishing out college and studying abroad, ends up with Conrad, her lifelong love. The description, feelings, quotes, and interactions with others described explain a complete character analysis of the main character, Belly Conklin.
There are many themes in We'll Always Have Summer, but there is two main, extremely strong themes. Over and over in this book, Belly lies about things, convincing herself of her answers that she knows in the back of her mind aren't true. However, the main thing that Belly lies to herself about was Jeremiah being the right guy. A quote from the book to support the theme of Belly lying to herself about who her true love was is this quote: "There was this moment between us then, of us just looking at each other, holding each other's gaze. If I leaned forward just a bit, we would be kissing. I knew I should move away, but I couldn't". Following with the soon after quote, "Everything did go back to normal. I was normal, Conrad was normal: it was like nothing happened. Because nothing did happen. If he didn't have a bandage on his leg, I'd have thought I dreamed the whole thing." These quotes combined show the theme of Belly lying to herself about who she really loves, because even though yes, she loves Jeremiah, the one who she truly, truly, loves is Conrad. This quote really best describes this one of the two main themes. The second theme is memories coming back. Throughout We'll Always Have Summer, Belly has many memories come back, mainly ones with Conrad and her short-lived relationship with him. A quote to support this theme is this one, from Belly: "We spent the night lying there on the couch like kids that winter, and remembering that suddenly made my stomach flip." Belly remembers these memories all too well. If Conrad was just "some guy", she wouldn't have so vividly remembered everything. The themes described are the main themes in We'll Always Have Summer.
I would one hundred percent recommend the book We'll Always Have Summer. It's the perfect raw story of a girl who's with the wrong guy. From being proposed to within days after finding out a huge secret, to her mother and father's zero support and complete disapproval, to feelings for Conrad coming back, she knows it's not write but pushes through it anyway, telling herself it's right. Though I am into some fantasy, I don't like a fantasy love story, so the fact that this book is so real makes me love it. In fact, this trilogy of The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You, and We'll Always Have Summer is my favorite trilogy. That being said, I would absolutely recommend the entire series, including this book.
*I chose the image 1 because it symbolizes Belly knowing the wedding not being quite right. Image 2 is of course The Notebook movie cover, because the story line of that movie kind of described Belly and Conrad's relationship with each other.*
Want to purchase We'll Always Have Summer ? Click here: http://www.amazon.com/Well-Always-Have-Summer-Jenny/dp/1416995595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362108210&sr=8-1&keywords=well+always+have+summer
Want to check out the author Jenny Han? Click here: http://dearjennyhan.com/
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