Series · Romance, Drama · 2022 · TV-14

The Summer I Turned Pretty: parents' guide

14+our pick

Best for ages 14 and up. Rated TV-14.

A swoony teen romance that's best for mid-teens, since it's saltier than its sunny look suggests. Belly spends summers at a beach house with her mother's best friend and her two sons, and gets caught in a love triangle between the brothers over three seasons. Expect frequent f-words, often ten or more an episode in later seasons, heavy drinking including by teens, marijuana use, and sex that is implied rather than shown. A major character's illness and death from cancer brings a lot of grief. Age 14 reflects the language, drinking and sexual content.

What's in it

Violence

Moderate

Brief and realistic: young men brawl at parties, a girl is accidentally hit and bruised, a mother slaps her daughter, and a car crash puts a character in the hospital with a feared brain injury. A brief close-up of a bloody wound.

Language

Strong

Frequent. Plugged In counted from 5 to more than 20 f-words in each episode of seasons 2 and 3, plus many s-words, "bitch," "slut," "asshole," one use of the n-word, frequent misuse of God's name and a middle finger.

Sex and nudity

Moderate

Lots of kissing and making out. Several couples, including the teen and college-age leads, are shown in bed before or after sex in underwear or with bare shoulders, and one flashback briefly shows sexual movement. Cheating, sexual teasing and sex talk are common.

Drinking, drugs and smoking

Strong

Teens and adults drink heavily, sometimes with fake IDs, and a mother allows underage drinking at a party. Characters smoke pot, use a bong and eat THC gummies, two moms share a joint, and people drive after drinking.

Scary or intense scenes

Moderate

No real scares, but a lot of grief: a beloved character's cancer diagnosis, decline and death hit the family hard, and a car crash and a sudden collapse cause worry. Season 3 includes joking references to murder and suicide.

Sensitive topics

  • Death of a parent

Worth talking about

Talk about how Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah deal with grief and jealousy, and what honesty in a relationship looks like compared with what the characters do.

Where to stream →

Similar picks around 14+

Checked October 13th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Plugged In, Wikipedia, movieguide.org. The age is our judgment, not an official rating, and every family draws its lines differently: read the notes, not just the number. Spotted something we missed? Tell us. How we rate.