Trading library cards for Amazon Prime Video subscriptions, Gen Z has spent the summer enraptured in binge-worthy screen adaptations from popular book series.
The third season of the show “The Summer I Turned Pretty ” and the debut season of “We Were Liars” aired on Prime Video this summer to reimagine the book series’ for the screen. Translating the emotional whirlwind of these young adult novels into visual media has attracted a broader audience to engage with the stories.
“The Summer I Turned Pretty” follows Isabel “Belly” Conklin as she navigates her feelings for the Fisher brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah, while growing into herself as a young adult. The third season, adapted from the third novel, “We’ll Always Have Summer,” amassed 25 million viewers within the first week of the debut episode’s release on July 16, 2025. Prime Video users tune into episodes each week, in anticipation of answers to the viral debate of which brother, Belly, should end up with.
Junior Charlotte Mathias of Long Branch, who watches the latest episode of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” every Wednesday, describes the series’s success in gaining a teenage audience beyond existing readers.
“I think the show also works really well because it is so tailored to teenagers and young adults,” said Mathias. “They do that by using music that we listen to and using Gen Z style, trying their best to appeal to their target audience.”
Another television series that drew in readers this summer was “We Were Liars,” based on the novel by E. Lockhart. The story follows protagonist Cadence Sinclair and her seemingly perfect family as she uncovers their deepest secrets while trying to piece together an incident that occurred the previous summer.
While both “We Were Liars” and “The Summer I Turned Pretty” have gained loyal fan bases, there are common obstacles faced when executing a book-adapted TV series. Many viewers who have read the novels are prone to comparing discrepancies between the original books and the new screen adaptations.
Sophomore Ryan Schiavo of Oceanport read “We Were Liars” novels and found stark differences between the two pieces of media.
“The book is much better than the show, in my opinion. The characters are more likable [in the books] than in the show, and it’s less confusing than how the show switches from past to present tense,” said Schiavo.
Regardless of the meticulous work ethic necessary to transition a novel to screen, authors make TV adaptations with the intention to please their existing readers and draw in greater recognition for their stories, turning what a reader once had to visualize into a technicolor reality.
Discussing the means behind creating a television show from a book series, sophomore Grace Jameson of Middletown puts herself into the perspective of the author of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” Jenny Han.
“I think she realized it was something her readers really wanted to see in a different media form,” said Jameson.
