Reviews for the buzzy new romance series Every Year After are in — and critics have agreed that it doesn’t capture the same magic as The Summer I Turned Pretty.
Based on a 2022 novel by Canadian author Carley Fortune, the new Amazon Prime Video teen romance drama follows Persephone Fraser (Sadie Soverall), who returns home for the first time in a decade for a funeral and is faced with her first love, Sam (Matt Cornett), and his older brother, Charlie (Michael Bradway).
In The Guardian’s three-star review, Sarah Dempster writes that the series has striking similarities with Amazon’s hit drama The Summer I Turned Pretty, which follows a female protagonist named Belly, who is caught in a love triangle with two brothers.
Dempster writes that “while the fondant-y soundtrack does its best to distract us from the realisation that this is essentially The Summer I Turned Pretty in big girl pants, questions bob like buoys — and, indeed, boys — around Percy’s shapely ankles.”
Refinery29’s review also points out the similarities. “Considering there are two brothers, one girl, a lake house and a dead mother, it feels eerily similar to The Summer I Turned Pretty. However, there are some differences, and the slow-burn way Percy and Sam get together is both awkward and sweet,” said the review.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Angie Han said that where The Summer I Turned Pretty built a believable romance, Every Year After didn’t match up.
“So besotted with its own heartbreak it forgets to sell the romantic fantasy that would make it worthwhile in the first place, it mainly serves to confirm that recapturing that The Summer I Turned Pretty magic is easier said than done,” writes Han.
Han also argues that the series is saddled with “undercooked details” and “half-baked clichés and some truly groanworthy attempts at profundity,” which she says is exhausting to watch.
In a more generous review, Variety’s Armide Tinubu also pointed towards the similarities between the two Amazon series, but said the flashbacks in Every Year After give the series the “perfect amount of depth and emotion to elevate it beyond a typical teen romance.”
Tinubu also credited the character development for adding value to the series. “Every Year After gives everyone who comes into frame a refreshing amount of depth,” writes the critic.
“Chantal, for example, is struggling to hold the mental load of her relationship and her career as a high-powered attorney. Delilah appears to be a quintessential bitchy mean girl, but it quickly becomes apparent that first impressions can be deceiving.”
In The Times of London’s three-star review, Ben Dowell says the show’s saccharine tone falls flat.
He wrote that the “show’s sugary sap gets sickly all too quickly, especially as it plays out to an impossibly bland and flavourless soundtrack of breathy, dirgey love songs.”
Still, Dowell said the series will probably be a hit: “Hence the rather generous three stars,” he wrote. “This is telly by numbers.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty, starring Lola Tung, Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno, released its third and final season in September to huge anticipation. Hours after the climactic ending, Amazon Prime Video announced that the story would be continued in a forthcoming movie.
The drama follows Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Tung) and the summer holiday
s she spends in the fictional seaside town of Cousins with the Fisher brothers, Conrad (Briney) and Jeremiah (Casalegno). When Belly turns 16, she suddenly captures the romantic attention of both brothers, and a love triangle forms.
At the turn of its third season, the series acquired legions of fans, thanks to a social media frenzy surrounding the show. Its season three premiere drew 25 million viewers globally within the first week of its release, according to Prime Video — a 40 percent jump from season two and nearly triple the audience of season one.
