laurennicolewhite on TikTok
TSITP, The Twilight Saga, The Vampire Diaries, and Formulaic Story Structure
The first book in the The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy was published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster, one of the ‘Big 5’ publishing houses in the publishing industry. Jenny Han, the novel’s author, is also the mastermind behind To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, another coming-of-age teen drama that was further popularized when Netflix adapted the novel into a lighthearted, sappy, romantic teen comedy.
Amazon Prime picked up Han’s TSITP and turned the book trilogy into a three-season series, the last of which is currently airing. Han’s forté, evidently, is teen romance, with a complex, quirky main character at the forefront of each plot. As a 20-something-year-old woman myself, I am well-versed in teen dramas ranging from Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and, of course, The Summer I Turned Pretty. From my perspective, Han’s story structure and plot archetypes are intoxicating, regardless of the actors’ abilities (or lack thereof) to portray their characters above mediocrity.
Each female protagonist from their respective programs allows viewers to do two things: One, project themselves onto the blank canvas of a character. And two, accurately represent the viewer herself in a quirky, awkward character who possesses poor decision-making skills and can’t truly find their rhythm. The female protagonist in TSITP is Isabel Conklin, but is referred to as Belly throughout the series. Belly’s family grew up visiting Cousins Beach every summer, thanks to her mother, Laurel, whose college roommate-turned-platonic soulmate had a summer home. Susannah, Laurel’s best friend, has two sons, Jeremiah and Conrad. The viewer is introduced to Belly in tandem with her unconditional love for Conrad, which is written as having always existed. The series begins with Belly on the brink of her sweet 16, coming of age, and realizing she is no longer the nerdy girl she used to be. The series focuses on Belly’s journey through making an immense number of mistakes, all the while juggling two boys, both Conrad and Jeremiah, and deciding which of the two is right for her.
Bella Swan, the female protagonist in Twilight, has a story arc that relies on her inability to comfortably exist in the world. This is made even more obvious after her parents’ divorce and subsequent move to Forks, Washington, where she moves in with her loving yet awkward father. She meets Edward, who represents change and transformation both figuratively in life and literally into a vampire. She also meets Jacob, who represents home and familiarity. Two paths are laid out in front of her, and this dilemma is a storyline that continues throughout the five-part film series.
In The Vampire Diaries, we follow Elena Gilbert, a girl-next-door type who is reeling from the passing of her parents in an accident she had survived. She is grieving what her life was before the accident, and like clockwork, in comes two brothers, Stefan and Damon. In the same vein as Twilight, one brother represents safety and comfort, while the other represents danger and incites her to live her life to its greatest extent, respectively. In six out of the eight seasons of the television series, we follow Elena’s turbulent journey through transformation, confusion, and navigating what she wants out of life and love. Now, The Summer I Turned Pretty does not possess the same fantastical elements as Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, I know. This fantasy element further invites female viewers by promising them some sort of escape from reality to a world where the female protagonist—in other words, the viewer herself gets everything she wants and watches her life unfold perfectly in real time. TSITP offers a fantasy rooted in reality, sure, but it is a fantasy nonetheless.
Nostalgia Reigns Supreme: Reminiscing on a Simpler Time
Aside from self-insertion, The Summer I Turned Pretty utilizes nostalgia to reel in millennials, Gen Xers, and the oldest Gen Zers.
TSITP utilizes its soundtrack to represent the current times by including Billboard’s Top 100, but also adds classics from the 90s, the early aughts, and the 2010s. The video above claims that the soundtracks of popular teen shows in the early aughts, such as The OC, One Tree Hill, and Gossip Girl (2007), functioned as their “own character.” The music used in each show was its own functional being, fluidly moving each plot line along from scene to scene and increasing the tension where it saw fit. TSITP does the same, most popularly utilizing Taylor Swift’s discography to speak the words that aren’t said between characters in the show. For the main age group watching, Taylor Swift was a pillar of their childhood or of their current self. So, it’s not surprising that folks feel an intense kinship with the show and what that nostalgia represents to them: A simpler time, far away from the trials and tribulations they currently face in adulthood. When they watch TSITP, they exist at Cousins Beach, where two brothers are pining after them, and the biggest decision they have to make is which brother they’ll end up with by book three. No taxes, no job searching, and especially no deficit of gentleman callers. The little girl in all of us, at the end of the day, just wants to be nurtured, heard, and understood. The aforementioned teen dramas utilize nostalgia to pluck at the heartstrings of older age groups and it clearly works.
Fan Reception
TikTok has made TSITP’s reach very apparent. Older users admit that they are tuning into the drama each week, admittedly surprised by their own infatuation with the storyline and their yearning for a love interest like Conrad Fisher. Viewers are invested in the plot line because it represents the promise of a life outside their own, a warm invitation to make the changes in their lives that they might be afraid to make.
To put it plainly, it also gives us something to do! There are entire accounts dedicated to predicting what the next episode of TSITP will look like, cross-analyzed with the novels, while also analyzing the anatomy of each scene. Especially for older age groups who feel like they’re in on a little secret by being able to pick up on the little details and hidden smart moves made by Han and the show’s writers and production team. Being invested in a television show with the masses provides a sense of community to those who might lack it in their lives outside of social media, and TSITP allows women (and viewers in general) of all ages to converse with each other and share their own experiences in life and love. They share in their disdain for Jeremiah Fisher, their complicated feelings toward Belly’s poor decision-making, and their overall confusion as to why they are obsessed with the show in the first place. Even after writing this, I’m not completely aware of the levels of my own infatuation, but I’m going to chalk it up to girlhood.
