Why everyone’s talking about The Summer I Turned Pretty

“Please tell me one of you watches The Summer I Turned Pretty???” reads a text from one of my best friends in our group chat.

We’re both in our 30s, married, have busy careers, and yet we’re hooked on a TV series about a teenage love triangle. The kind of obsession that involves shouting at the screen like it’s a football match, and then taking a week to recover from the emotional turmoil.

The third series of The Summer I Turned Pretty (TSITP) follows Isabel Conklin (Belly to her friends) as she makes what’s expected to be her final decision about which brother – Conrad or Jeremiah Fisher – she will end up with.

It’s Prime Video’s most popular show in the UK right now and social media is full of fan-made clips and opinions about whom she should choose. The much-anticipated finale airs on 17 September.

Luckily, my friend and I are both Team Conrad. But the rivalry has got people so fired up that fans have been asked to calm down, as some of the cast have been abused online.

So, what is it that’s making us so emotionally invested in a romantic dilemma that doesn’t even exist?

Love triangles aren’t a new storytelling device. TSITP could be compared to throwback TV shows such as The Vampire Diaries and One Tree Hill (though the latter features half-brothers rather than full brothers like Conrad and Jeremiah).

Warning: The below may contain potential spoilers – especially if you haven’t watched series three of the show

“It very much [encapsulates] everything that was really good about 2000s romcoms and those angsty, yearning dramas,” says fan Nathan Scott (no, not the One Tree Hill character). “All the looks across the room, the forbidden little touches and everything – it’s all there.”

Nathan used to see his fiancee Oliwia Netter, both aged 25 and living in London, watching TSITP, and initially his attitude was “this is rubbish and I’m not watching it”.

But after he glimpsed more and began asking questions, Nathan admits he binge-watched the first series in three days.

Superfan Varun Lobo, 26, got into TSITP a couple of years ago but had not read any of the books, written by US author Jenny Han, on which the show is based.

He agrees it builds on storytelling elements that have worked well before.

“It really kind of evokes a nostalgia that takes you back to your first teenage crushes and teenage romances,” he says. Controversially, Varun is Team Jeremiah.

Becca Kittler, 30, read the books as a teenager in the US and has been Team Conrad from the start.

“I think everyone has their person and I know that Conrad is Belly’s. There’s that spark, that tie they have with each other, the history.”

But isn’t a love triangle involving brothers a bit much, even for fiction?

“At the end of the day, it’s about escapism,” Varun explains, pointing to how he feels about the current state of the world. “Sometimes it’s nice to just take yourself out of it and go to Cousins Beach.”

Michelle Elman, 32, is also an avid TSITP viewer and works as a life coach in London. Despite the show skipping over some of the moral quandaries that arise from dating a pair of brothers, she appreciates how it deals with significant issues.

Death – a theme that also features in Dawson’s Creek, another popular show from the turn of the millennium – hangs over the second and third series of TSITP.

“It has a lot of threads around grief, as the boys lose their mum, and so there are some really serious undertones to it,” Michelle says. “But they are presented in quite a digestible way – I think that’s also where it’s resonated with some people.”

Michelle knows of mothers and daughters who watch the show together and use it as an opportunity to discuss how to deal with difficult situations – whether it be grief, dating problems or hurt feelings.

There is plenty of this to go around: for example, when Jeremiah gets drunk and makes unpleasant comments, or when Conrad fails to communicate his feelings.

The hype around TSITP has been fuelled by social media, particularly on TikTok where fans of the books speculate about the ending of the TV series.

This became more frenzied when Han teased the series could end differently to the book.

Others have created videos dedicated to the couple they’d like to see get together and many of these are set to songs by Taylor Swift, whose music features prominently in the show’s soundtrack.

Fans of Swift – who famously drops hidden messages and hints about future projects – have also become convinced Han has been planting seeds throughout the series to foreshadow the outcome.

Varun has had posters used to advertise the show reproduced at a print shop near his home in Nottingham. He’s framed them and they now adorn his dining room.

“That is how much I love the show,” he laughs.

Becca is particularly grateful for the online community that has built up around TSITP on forums like Reddit.

“I will forever be eternally grateful to this show. Because of it, I’ve been able to find some of my best friends and break out of my comfort zone,” she says.

Meanwhile, my group chat is bound to be pinging come finale day when it will become clear if my friends and I have backed the winning team (Team Conrad) – or not.

Like me, Nathan also feels watching the show is a bit like following a sport.

“The hype is like a Super Bowl or Champions League final,” he tells the BBC.

“I get the same feeling watching Conrad and Belly moments as I do when watching Liverpool… The feeling I got for the bathtub scene, or the peaches scene, is the same to me as a last-minute winner at Anfield.

“Words fail me.”

Additional reporting by George Sandeman