Back in May, the Amazon Prime teen romance The Summer I Turned Pretty caught my attention when it used "This Love (Taylor's Version)" in a teaser, complete with a written endorsement from Taylor Swift herself. The Summer I Turned Pretty had already been on the edge of my radar since it was Jenny Han's claim-to-fame pre-To All the Boys I've Loved Before, but I didn't pay much attention to the trilogy until the literal music industry said it was good.

Barnes & Noble carried a box set with new covers, so I ordered all three books at once, and, wow, was that a naive decision. About a week later, I read the entire first book in one afternoon, but not in a "this book is so great, I can't put it down" kind of way. No, in an "I need to finish this so I can laugh at its entirety with everyone I know" kind of way; in a "tired plot + shockingly thin characters + awful romance = train wreck" kind of way.

I didn't want to hate The Summer I Turned Pretty. I'm a huge fan of Jenny Han's other work, and the Taylor Swift- and Olivia Rodrigo-filled TV show soundtrack looked like I could gear up for a new hyper-fixation. I'm not high-and-mighty about romance as a genre, either; people being snotty like that is one of my biggest pet peeves. Surprisingly, one of the book's biggest downfalls was how excited I was: I saw the redesigned covers and expected a more modern book when I'd actually ordered something from nearly fifteen years ago when YA romance as a whole struggled with toxic archetypes. Had I been holding a book with dated cover trends and less of a quality design, I might have been more inclined to give TSITP leeway, but with a fresh, new look, I subconsciously set the bar high.

That high bar made the basic plot even more of a disappointment. Not only was it predictable and overused, but it was also shockingly sparse and bland. I couldn't tell you what filled up those 300-some pages—it constantly flip-flopped between filler scenes and fever dreams. The core concept makes me uncomfortable, too: a girl "transformed" over the school year and became every guy's dream. I don't know how to articulate why it felt wrong to me; something about it pulled me back into my middle school days far too intensely for me to like. It was almost like Han crafted the idea, consciously or not, to be a sort of fantasy life for young girls, not unlike Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. Belly is the spunky, not-like-other-girls blank slate that's perfect for readers to project themselves onto, and you can say what you want about reasons to read, but after experiencing books like that myself, I will always firmly believe that those types of characters are never healthy for young readers, especially since it's nearly impossible to notice when you're in it. I would much rather have YA books with a diverse range of strongly characterized protagonists for readers to see themselves in without putting themselves onto the character.

Belly wasn't the only weak character; all of them were personality-less. Her brother Steven's only trait was being a terrible person, but it's okay because they're siblings? I hate when people push that rhetoric; unhealthy relationships don't get a pass just because they're familial. And the romantic relationships were no better: everyone kept saying how Jeremiah was some kind of comedy god, and then he didn't tell a single joke—if he was even there. Jeremiah was supposed to be the other love interest, but he had maybe three scenes. He became my favorite character simply because he didn't have enough time to do something mean. The other other love interest, Cameron, also lacked substance. I swear to god, I could not tell you a single personality trait for this man. I think he was supposed to be edgy and "not like other guys" (weren't they all?), but he mostly ended up being bland and uninteresting.

The worst of the characters, however, was Conrad, Love Interest #1. He was the essence of toxic dream guys in 2000s teen romances: distant, brooding, "damaged." Poor communication skills and unstable emotions are attractive in this book, because the year is 2009, and who doesn't love a manipulative man? (To be fair, the year was quite literally 2009 upon the book's release.) My problem with Conrad goes deeper than the surface-level "this romance is unappealing and uninteresting"; romances like his and Belly's wreak real damage on impressionable readers, especially young girls. 12- and 13-year-old girls read books like TSITP and slowly believe that a guy like Conrad—fickle, overprotective—is the ideal guy. Then, they end up in unhealthy, even dangerous relationships because of that education instilled into them. Books aren't the only source of that belief, but they're enough of a source to be harmful.

And I know that this book is old enough for all of my grievances to have been normal, but why do Belly and her toxic romances have to be dragged to light in 2022, when authors like Casey McQuiston and Sandhya Menon are now in the YA rom-com game? No one would have minded if TSITP had quietly died and newer romantic comedies got attention from streaming services. Who cares if it has the Jenny Han and To All the Boys names attached to it? One single famous actor in the cast would have garnered the same amount of publicity. Even with the updates added to the show, like Jeremiah being bi and the general cast of characters having more personality, I still didn't think it was good enough for a brand-new series. The entire romance with Conrad is built on ickiness, and although bisexuality fits Jeremiah's character well enough, it came off as tokenized to me—maybe because I already had a general dislike, but maybe because they wanted inclusivity points and didn't try all that hard for thoughtful representation.

I hate writing negative reviews for romantic comedies; the whole genre is belittled and not given the respect it deserves for its ability to captivate readers of all kinds, but I couldn't lie about The Summer I Turned Pretty. It was a product of its time, and I kind of hate it for that.

This isn't exactly an October-oriented review, mais c'est la vie. This is what I prepared. Happy Halloween, by the way! Next month, I'll try to get a review out a bit earlier than the last day, but we'll see how it goes. Until next time, keep reading, readers.

Hello, readers! I hope you all had fantastic summers and are excited to jump back into school! First, however, I have some bittersweet news: I'm officially a senior. Being a senior comes with a lot of good things (finally! graduating!) but also a lot of bad—like the final return to my blog. I don't want to go too far into all the sappy stuff (don't worry, it'll come in June), so just know that the idea of never writing a "welcome back" title again is very weird to me.

For this month's post, I have a review/analysis of Dead Wake I wrote for AP Lang a couple weeks ago, so grab your best dress because today we're going formal! The rest of the year, I'll have my usual rants and raves, but I want to give myself a little time to adjust to my schedule before starting any posts.

Without further ado, Dead Wake...

​Erik Larson has become the nonfiction writer for fiction readers. His detailed deep-dives into historical events like murder at the Chicago World's Fair (The Devil in the White City), Winston Churchill during the blitz of London (The Splendid and the Vile), and the 1933 German-American embassy (In the Garden of Beasts) capture everyday readers in ways few nonfiction historical books can. His 2013 novel Dead Wake, an in-depth analysis of every letter, every order, and every moment that lead to the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, enthralls readers all the same. Surprisingly, unlike many exciting historical studies, Larson doesn't often present an angle or argument to convince the reader of good guys and bad guys (although it pushes its way in at times); instead, he spends the 300-plus pages exploring every side of the situation, from the U-boat logs documenting the sinking to the individual lives of Lusitania passengers.

Dead Wake follows a few different storylines. Primarily, Larson talks about what happens on the ship itself. The book discusses the lives of passengers (some of whom had nearly sailed on the Titanic, including Alfred Vanderbilt); the captain, Turner, one of the most accomplished captains in all of Cunard; and any slow-downs, including last-minute additions from another ship, the Cameronia, and a tour for Turner's niece. The Lusitania could speed across the Atlantic faster than any other ship at the time, with an average of a whopping 26 knots, but during its final crossing, Cunard secretly ordered Captain Turner to use only three of the ship's four engines, adding an entire day onto the voyage. Dead Wake also travels with the German U-boat that eventually sank the Lusitania, documenting its logs and the requirements for German captains, who were ranked based on tonnage sunk (making the Lusitania an ideal target). Great Britain's top-secret codebreakers, Room 40, make appearances as they track German ships and decide whether or not to act on classified knowledge regarding the Lusitania—as time runs out, the lives of nearly 2,000 people rest in their hands. The final plotline follows President Woodrow Wilson, who faces several battles: politically, the country is tearing itself apart over how America should act in regards to the war, and personally, he has fallen in love again after the death of his wife Ellen.

The real purpose behind the creation of Dead Wake was the desire for modern-day Americans to understand just how huge of an impact this tragedy had, not only on international relations but also on real, ordinary people. The book uses dialogue and everyday moments on board to ground the massive amount of death in reality. For example, on page 194, Larson describes an instance where two little girls try to help a worker paint a lifeboat. "[The painter, Morton,] was hard at work when he heard the sound of small shoes charging toward him, and looked out… to see two girls intently watching… 'I could not help thinking what lovely children they were and how beautifully dressed,' Morton wrote" (193-194). Later, Larson gives the exact body count when the two little girls' corpses were recovered. First, he humanized the children and created a connection between them and the reader, and only then does he reveal their deaths, increasing the emotional impact.

Larson uses minute details to turn statistics into real drownings of children, family, and friends, writing, "The worst were those situations where a passenger was expected to be on a different ship but… had ended up on the Lusitania, as was the case with the passengers of the Cameronia… includ[ing] Margaret and James Shineman, newlyweds from Oil City, Wyoming, who suddenly found themselves aboard the fastest, most luxurious ship in service, for their journey to Scotland to visit Margaret's family. The visit was to be a surprise. Both were killed" (300). Larson first introduces the Shinemans' names, lives, and early joy before switching to the short, hard sentence "both were killed" to emphasize how very human all of the losses were.

Erik Larson also challenges the reader to consider alternative aspects of the sinking by giving the German U-boat's perspective. Dead Wake regularly switches to U-20 (the German U-boat) and its captain, Schwieger. It doesn't use hard, biased language to turn the reader against Schwieger like other American studies of the Lusitania might; instead, it presents the facts and the people behind them like it does for every other location in the book. It quotes many of Schwieger's captain logs, as well as journal entries and letters from his crew. Their bravery, despite being against America during World War I, is recognized. U-boats were notoriously dangerous and hard to manage, spread by stories of U-boats striking mines and later being discovered with "vivid evidence of the kind of death submariners most feared… The scratches on the steel walls, the corpses' torn finger-nails, the blood-stains on their clothes and on the wall, bore all too dreadful witness" (123). That sort of brutal death was always possible on U-boats, and after two days of sailing, Schwieger was "no longer able to communicate with his superiors… wholly on his own" (124). In Larson's painting of the Lusitania's tragedy, it would be easy to make Schwieger nothing more than a villain, but he instead opts for a fuller version of the truth.

Sometimes, however, Larson can be too rosy in his attempts to show every side of the story, especially with President Woodrow Wilson. In Larson's book, Wilson is "a great man" (23) with a good heart. He's introduced with the deep grief of the death of his wife, slanting him in a sympathetic light. As the country's and the world's problems are slowly introduced, there is an underlying idea that all of it is out of his control. No responsibility, it can feel, ever lies on Wilson, despite him having more responsibility than anyone in the entire country. His wife is dead, and he is "a heartbreaking scene" (23), so how could he deal with politics? Dead Wake never so much as mentions Wilson reintroducing racial segregation in the capital or his choice to actively ignore women's protests for the right to vote, even though those issues dominated America at the time. By many modern standards of acceptance and equality, Wilson was not "a great man" (23), but nowhere is that idea considered. It's even avoided when discussing his infatuation with a close friend, Edith Galt. Larson writes their friendship-to-marriage to be nothing less than a joyful romantic comedy. They take drives around DC and share books with secret notes; she is described as "a heaven—haven—sanctuary… her presence helped him clarify his thoughts about the nation's trials" (109). Suddenly, with that final addition, she shares his presidential responsibilities, despite having only the connection of a close friend—a personal friend, not a professional one, who, at the end of the day, should not be roped into his job.

On its own, that connection might not be such a problem, but when Larson pairs it with the language surrounding Wilson's proposal later in the book, it feels wrong. When he proposes, she rejects him, which "casts him into a state akin to grief" (210-211). He handles it by writing her extensive, creepy letters sharing his belief "that she would come to love him" (211). These letters aren't in any way depicted as terrifying or disrespectful; no, they are "impassioned postscripts" (211). When Edith's so-called friend shames and guilts her for not wanting a life married to the President of the United States, she isn't manipulating Edith—she's only worried because "some happiness was coming into his life… and now [Edith is] breaking his heart" (177). Her sexism was showing, but Larson allows it to control the narrative with calmness, never once pointing it out. In fact, he frames their eventual marriage in a positive light by focusing on Wilson's perspective, writing, "Wilson had cause for cheer… [when] Edith at last agreed to marry him" (332). "At last," in this context, holds a positive connotation, like this was the summation of some great and beautiful love story when, according to the facts presented by Dead Wake itself, the marriage was really the effect of a woman pressured into a life she didn't want in order to keep a man comfortable.

Overall, Dead Wake is an unusual nonfiction book, so close to fiction in its suspense and details that a reader could accidentally call it a novel. Larson does his best to show every side of the story, although personal bias inevitably leaks in. Still, it is well-written and entertaining, perfect for a reader intimidated by the nonfiction shelves in the library. Until next time, keep reading, readers.