“The Summer I Turned Pretty,” based on Jenny Han’s novel, became the No. 1 show on Amazon Prime Video in its premiere weekend following its June 17 release.
Following the series’ debut, all three “The Summer I Turned Pretty” books shot into the top three spots on the Amazon Best Sellers list, with book two, “It’s Not Summer Without You,” at No. 1.
The artists whose music is used in the show have also seen an increase in streams, sales and followers, with some experiencing up to a 6,000% increase in song sales.
Taylor Swift’s “Lover” album — songs “Cruel Summer,” “False God” and “This Love” are all featured in the show — re-entered the Billboard Top 40 three years after its release. The album also went from Swift’s No. 4 streamed album to her No. 1 streamed album on Spotify after gaining 3.9 million streams; “Cruel Summer” had its highest streaming day on Spotify since 2019.
The series also had a massive social media reach, with the hashtag #TheSummerITurnedPretty accumulating over 1.3 billion views on TikTok. It generated over 107,000 global posts over launch weekend and 725 million potential impressions across platforms, according to social analytics agency DMS.
“‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ series captured the escapist, coming-of-age, romantic themes book lovers have enjoyed for several years now,” Vernon Sanders, head of global television at Prime Video, tells Variety. “We’ve been so impressed with the response and embrace of this series from young viewers as well as older generations as many co-view with the young people in their lives. These themes are universal and we are really encouraged by the social chatter, the uptick in Jenny’s book sales, and Taylor Swift’s music from the series topping charts again. We certainly have a summer hit and we’re so excited for even more audiences to find the show and talk about it.”
The show follows a young teenage girl, Belly (Lola Tung), on her family’s annual summer vacation to the beach. She finds herself torn between Conrad (Christopher Briney), the boy she’s been in love with her whole life, and his brother, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), whom she’s always seen as a best friend. The triangle plays out over the course of Han’s three books.
“I went into this adaptation hoping to please the book fans who’ve been waiting so patiently to see this story come on screen, but also hoping to connect with viewers who were coming to the show fresh,” Han says. “I think we’ve managed to do both, and there’s nothing more gratifying than that! It’s also really exciting that the show has brought a new generation of readers to the books, who are so eager to see where the story goes. It’s beyond thrilling to me that the story keeps finding its audience all these years later.”
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