The Summer I Turned Pretty

Belly’s swimsuits represent her changing feelings about her developing body. The summer that she’s 14, when Taylor joins Belly in Cousins for a week, Belly is forced to pay more attention to her suit choices than she ever has. Belly is most comfortable in her athletically-styled one-piece suit from her school’s swim team. It minimizes her curves, isn’t sexy, and is functional above all else. Taylor, on the other hand, wears bikinis—bikinis she’s happy to talk up when she’s alone with Belly, but which she’s decidedly nervous wearing in front of Jeremiah, Conrad, and Steven. For Taylor, they represent a version of physical maturity that is at once desirable and frightening.

Though Belly spends less time worrying about her swimsuits in the novel’s present, Belly still never lets go of her self-consciousness. When Clay Bertolet creepily ogles her one evening, her discomfort stems from Clay’s obviously inebriated and predatory attention while she’s scantily dressed. Then, while she’s swimming one night, Conrad interrupts her—and Belly feels extremely self-conscious that she’s still wearing her swim team suit, which is, by now, too small for her. Even as it isn’t designed to be sexy, Belly continues to feel like her body is overly sexualized and out of her control. This reflects the idea that part of puberty, particularly for girls, means navigating constant anxiety about one’s changing body—and the attention, both positive and negative, that others pay to it.