The Summer I Turned Pretty Finale Twist: How the Show Rewrites the Books' Ending
The Summer I Turned Pretty ends its final season with a Belly and Conrad reunion—and a bold detour from Jenny Han’s books that has fans split. Here are the biggest ways the finale diverges from the page.
Prime Video wrapped The Summer I Turned Pretty with a soft landing: Belly and Conrad finally find their way back to each other. Sweet, sure. Final? Not exactly. If you read Jenny Han's books, you probably clocked how different this ending feels from what was on the page, and why some fans walked away a little bittersweet about it.
What the show gives us vs. what the book promises
- On the show (Season 3 finale): Belly and Conrad clear the air on a train, kiss, and head back to Cousins Beach. The last image is the two of them, hand in hand at the beach house, while a scrapbook-y montage hints at a Paris trip. It is tender and low-key by design, more whispered vows than grand declarations.
- In the book (We'll Always Have Summer): Their reunion is not just a rekindling; it is locked in. The novel ends with a full wedding and all the closure trimmings: Belly chooses her dress with her mom, their first dance is to 'Stay,' Susannah leaves a letter she wrote years earlier for Belly's big day, Conrad's love letters surface, and Jeremiah shows up to watch them say 'I do.' The show skips all of that.
Why the mixed reactions
The series finale plays it intimate and leaves space for imagination. The book slams the door with a happily-ever-after. That shift in tone explains the split response. Some viewers loved the restraint; others wanted the big, definitive beat the novels deliver. One fan summed up the feeling pretty cleanly:
'Finished the finale and had a great time but the ending felt incomplete like no running into the water? no valentines day flashback? and no scenes with anybody else for belly?'
- @buffysliterati
If you have been keeping score on the show's signature moments, those callouts make sense. The finale focuses tightly on Belly and Conrad and saves the nostalgia sizzle reel for that Paris tease, not for past-season rituals.
About that missing wedding...
There is a pretty obvious reason the show might hold back. Prime Video has already greenlit TSITP: The Movie, with Jenny Han writing and directing. Details are under wraps, but Han has teased that Belly still has 'one big milestone' ahead. It does not take a detective to guess what that could be, and yes, fans are already buzzing about whether the long-awaited Belly-and-Conrad wedding will finally make it to the screen.
So if the Season 3 ending felt like a soft comma instead of a period, that is probably the point. The love story is back on. The exclamation point might be saving its entrance for the movie.