‘Oh my god, Mum, I can’t believe you’re watching that again!’ my 16-year-old son says when he comes in to find me parked in front of The Summer I Turned Pretty for the third night in a row.
As a 40-something mum of three from the Cotswolds, I’m guessing I’m not the target audience for the Amazon Prime coming-of-age show about the growing pains of a teenage girl spending summers in New England.
But the fact is, I’m hooked.
It’s like 90s classic Sweet Valley High on steroids for Gen X’ers like me. And as the series draws to a close, with a movie spinoff already planned, I can honestly say it’s given me a warm glow of nostalgia, as well as keeping me on edge for the next romantic twist.
Before I was drawn into the show by a couple of 20-something colleagues, I was a bit perplexed by its popularity and thought it was just another quixotic, vanilla teen show.
A female lead called ‘Belly’ (short for Isabel, played by Lola Tung) who has a crush on a family friend.
‘Big deal,’ I thought. But it soon became a ritual to watch, settling down, wine in hand, and dogs in my lap.
For a show seemingly largely aimed at young women, it has an alluring combination of bittersweet coming-of-age nostalgia, a compelling love triangle, and the picture-perfect life that we’ve all dreamed of.
I was soon drawn in by the gorgeous Conrad (Christopher Briney) who is every bad boy I ever loved growing up. And as the first series unfolded, I found myself relating to so many of the characters and themes.
We see Belly slowly metamorphose from a girl into a woman, transforming from an awkward, people-pleasing little sister with braces, glasses, and pony tail into a desirable, independent young woman.
As the title suggests, it does allude to the experience a lot of girls have – that one summer when they transform from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Suddenly you’re aware that all eyes are on you and it’s both liberating, exciting, and terrifying in equal measure.
Even in my 40s, the show transported me back to holidaying with my late mum’s best friend and her two sons in Cornwall in my teens.
I fancied the older one, of course, but it was the younger one I eventually hooked up with. Like Belly, I put the eldest one on a pedestal and turned him into a romantic hero in my head.
The show captures the experience of first love and growing up so well.
As the series unravels, we see the ‘nice’ younger brother, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), a total contrast to the moody and mysterious Conrad, slowly start to look at Belly in a different way.
We are left wondering whether he has genuine feelings for her or is just trying to get one up on his big bro.
This confusion around people’s true feelings is, of course, particularly poignant at that age but I don’t think it ever really goes away either, even when you reach midlife.
Then there are the ‘moms’ who, at first, seem predictable and stereotypical: homemakers who want to create the perfect summer for their kids.
But we soon learn that the boys’ mum, Susannah, has cancer, which she is trying to shield her kids from as much as possible. She clearly wants to protect Conrad especially, but we see him suffering silently, which gives this drama more gravitas than other lightweight teen shows.
Elsewhere, Susannah’s best friend, Laurel, has recently gone through a divorce, which allows her to unravel from uptight tiger mom to spliff-smoking wild child who has sex in the car with the hot writer after getting pissed and dancing to some 90s bangers with her bestie.
As a Gen X’er, storylines like these are relatable, funny and bittersweet. I might never have got jiggy in a hatchback, but seeing these mums face their own dwindling youth and their changing friendship really resonates.
The real love story, we see, is between these mums: ‘Boys may come and go, but a best friend is once in a lifetime’.
I think, as you get older and go through life-changing events – in my case, bereavement – your close friends do become more important.
On top of that, as someone who is raising teens – my three kids are 11, 13 and 16 respectively – watching how the younger characters start to really understand the world around them reminds me how complicated and confusing life can be at that age and stage.
And I’ve not seen it explored so touchingly on the small screen in a US show like this before.
As for female empowerment, this show is a real gift. When Belly made her brilliant speech at the debutante ball (‘Girls aren’t supposed to know if we’re pretty or not. We’re supposed to wait for other people to tell us, before we’re allowed to feel it ourselves’).
It reminded me of that famous speech in the Barbie film by America Ferrera, which I watched with my daughter and made me feel quite emotional.
Ever since, I’ve tried to have more compassion for my kids and – rather than look back on my own formative years through nostalgia-tinted glasses – remember how hard it sometimes is to be a teenager.
The Summer I Turned Pretty also reminds me to have compassion for myself as a mum.
Watching Susannah and Laurel try to navigate their lives and expectations with the growing independence of their children made me reflect on my relationship with my own.
I’ve learnt from this programme about relationships and regret. As the author, Jenny Han, wrote in the original book of the same name: ‘It’s the imperfections that make things beautiful.’
I think that’s certainly something you realise as you get older and something that is beautifully captured in this lovely, touching show.
So I’ll be seated in the front row for the movie – even if I’m the oldest one there.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
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