Love 'The Summer I Turned Pretty'? 10 beach romances to read as you watch Season 3

Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah?

We've got one more season to wonder who Belly Conklin will end up with in "The Summer I Turned Pretty," and season 3 is already off to a rollercoaster start. Fans are kicking off the series in style, celebrating with elaborate watch parties and battling it out in the comments. The coming-of-age Amazon Prime show airs through Sept. 17.

If seven days is too long to wait for more "TSITP" and you're already caught up on the trilogy of Jenny Han books, we've got some other suggestions.

Books like ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’

These young adult and adult books are the perfect follow-up to “The Summer I Turned Pretty” – full of fleeting flings, crushes on the friend next door and the enticing possibility that one summer can change your life forever. 

‘Love and Other Words’ by Christina Lauren

This is a similar childhood-friends-to-lovers tale, except this book alternates between the “Then” and “Now.” 

“Then,” Macy Sorenson was a teenager quickly falling for her best friend Elliot, who lives next door to her family lake house. “Now,” Macy is a pediatric resident and engaged to a practical, financially secure man. “Then,” Elliot and Macy spent summers and weekends bonding over their favorite books, words and growing pains. “Now,” they’re unintentionally reuniting a decade after the fateful night when a declaration of love changed and destroyed everything.

'The Summers Between Us' by Noreen Nanja

Returning to your first love is rarely a painless affair. In "The Summers Between Us," Lia Juma returns to her family's summer cottage as the image of a perfectly polished immigrant daughter. But while she's back on Pike Bay, carefully buried secrets and forgotten memories threaten to boil to the surface, including Wesley Forest, a childhood love who was ripped away from her because of family pressure and heartbreak.

‘Some Other Now’ by Sarah Everett

Like “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” “Some Other Now” finds 17-year-old Jessi Rumfield caught between two boys who live next door – Rowan and Luke Cohen. They are more of a family to Jessi than her biological one. But after a tragedy and chain of terrible mistakes change everything, the broken bond between Jessi and the Cohen brothers seems unfixable.

One year of silence later, Luke reenters Jessi’s life with a proposition – will she pretend to be his girlfriend to make his mom, who is battling a terminal illness, happy?

'I Am Not Jessica Chen' by Ann Liang

If you want "The Summer I Turned Pretty" but with a hint of magical realism, check out this 2025 release. "I Am Not Jessica Chen" is about 17-year-old Jenna Chen, who feels like a disappointment to her family and wishes she was her Harvard-bound cousin, Jessica, instead. When her wish comes true, Jenna finds herself trapped in Jessica's body and must navigate a new elite private school, childhood crushes and a quickly fracturing identity.

‘The Summer of Broken Rules’ by K.L. Walther

In “The Summer of Broken Rules,” Meredith Fox returns to Martha’s Vineyard, where she typically spends every summer, for her cousin’s wedding. It’s also the first time she’s been back since her sister died and she was recently – and unexpectedly – dumped, which ushers in a whole host of complicated new feelings. 

A family game of Assassin should take her mind off things, especially since her target is a very cute groomsman. But she also doesn’t want herself distracted enough to lose the game and fall into another doomed relationship.

‘Every Summer After’ by Carley Fortune

In "Every Summer After," Persephone “Percy” Fraser spent every summer of her childhood at a lake house with her best friend, Sam Florek. They were inseparable for six summers – a friendship that eventually blossomed into something more – until she made the biggest mistake of her life. 

Now, years later, Sam and Percy reunite at the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral. “Every Summer After” is told over six years of summer and a once-in-a-lifetime weekend to set things right. 

‘A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow’ by Laura Taylor Namey

In this young adult romance, Lila Reyes’ summer plans fall hopelessly apart. Worried about her mental health, her parents send her off to England to relax and recuperate with family friends. The summer vacation may be a dream to some, but it feels dull and grey to sulking Lila.

Everything changes when she meets teashop clerk Orion Maxwell, who is determined to turn the summer around for her by showing her around the city and countryside. 

‘One True Loves’ by Elise Bryant

“One True Loves” follows Lenore Bennett, a recently graduated high school student looking forward to starting her new life at New York University in the fall. She’s under a lot of pressure from her parents, but luckily she has a family cruise to look forward to before the semester begins. 

When her family bonds with another family on the cruise, she finds herself stuck with Alex Lee, an irritating, hopeless romantic golden boy. Sparks fly all across Europe in this summer travel romance.

‘Going Bicoastal’ by Dahlia Adler

Described as a queer, young adult ‘Sliding Doors,' this rom-com opens as Natalya Fox is choosing whether she wants to spend the summer in NYC with her dad and the girl she’s always wanted or in LA with her estranged mom and the guy she never saw coming. Through alternating timelines in both settings, Natalya must make her choice and face the consequences of picking one summer love over the other.

‘Same Time Next Summer’ by Annabel Monaghan

An engaged woman runs into a first love she hasn’t seen in 14 years in this nostalgic beach read. In “Same Time Next Summer,” Sam has the perfect fiancé, the perfect job and is planning the perfect wedding. What’s not on her agenda is running into Wyatt, who broke her heart when she was 17. Reuniting with Wyatt back in the place where it all began, it feels like no time has passed. Can she keep the past buried in the sand of her Long Island beach house or will it follow her home?

Clare Mulroy is Paste BN’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.