We’re Still Living In Jenny Han’s Universe

Summer is officially over for Jenny Han. As the third and final season of Amazon’s The Summer I Turned Pretty — based on her YA trilogy of the same name — comes to a close, the showrunner and bestselling author has been feeling it all. “I was really emotional for Sean [Kaufman]’s last day because he is such a sweetheart,” she says, referring to the actor who plays the brother of protagonist Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung). “I was crying and was really sad for some reason. It’s nice to be able to take in the little moments and appreciate the people that you’ve spent the last few years with in such an intense way, where you’re together every single day working on something.”

The show’s viewership exploded in 2025, buoyed by a love triangle that has social media ferociously debating Team Conrad versus Team Jeremiah. “I think the most important thing is for the world to feel real so that the viewer can be cast under a spell living inside the story,” says Han, 45, who also wrote the To All the Boys I’ve Before trilogy that Netflix adapted into a film series. “I look for authenticity in casting and in costumes, living spaces — I try to ground the world in relatable touchstones that feel sincere and honest.”

For now, Han is focused on keeping the TV momentum going. “There’s not a book in the works,” she says of her current to-do list. “There’ve been books I’ve been working on for years that I’ve had to put aside because, when you’re doing a show, it’s more of a hamster wheel and you can’t really just stop.” When Summer’s finale drops Sept. 17, it’ll hardly be goodbye: the third season of the To All the Boys spinoff XO, Kitty is on the way, and that’s not all. “I have several things I’ve been working on, both movies and shows,” she says. “It’s been really nonstop for the past few years, so I’m excited for what comes next.”

On the fan community around the show:

I love seeing people having that collective experience as a group. Knowing that so many young people are heading off to college — maybe they’re going away for the first time and they’re lonely and don’t know anybody — I love that maybe people could use the show as a way to make a new friend or bridge connection. I remember being in college and how it is really scary those first couple of weeks.

On her approach to planting Easter eggs:

I always really respected when a storyteller was laying down pipe for things that would happen later on — just planting seeds. I don’t really think of that as eggs per se, but more of just being a good storyteller. But one Easter egg that fans didn’t pick up on was a lyric in the SZA song “Open Arms.” It’s in the first episode of the season. Nobody noticed it, but there is a clue about the rest of the season in the song.

On the time she recommended therapy to Lola Tung:

I remember being really overwhelmed when To All the Boys came out. Yes, I was a bestselling author. Yes, I had a nice-sized audience. But it’s really different to go from that to having millions of people know about you and be aware of you. That just doesn’t happen in the same way with books — a lot of times, people don’t even know what the author looks like, especially before social media. I was in my 30s when that happened. I had never been to therapy before, but then I felt like, “OK, it’s really good to fortify yourself as best you can in moments when you’re being hit with a lot at once.”

That was really what my thinking was: wanting to help [Lola] just get ready for what was to come, and knowing that there would be new challenges, to go from somebody unknown in college to then having your face on TV and people knowing who you are. It’s really lovely [watching her grow up]. In some ways, she’s grown so much, but I think, at her heart, she’s still the same person who was wonderful from the start.

On shaping a generation of crushes:

People really fell in love with Peter Kavinsky in To All the Boys, and a lot of people of all ages were really enamored with that character. I’ve been writing books for a long time, and readers, even before there was [an actor] attached to it, they had somebody in their minds that they imagined. I was the same way too as a young reader, where you read something and really just fall in love with a character. As somebody who writes a lot of love stories, that’s been a constant.”

On her favorite pop culture from this year:

And Just Like That… was something I really looked forward to watching every week. I was really sad that this was the end. Everybody was up in arms about it every week, and then everyone was upset that it was over. I’m like, “You better appreciate it while it’s there!” They said they were planning for the season to be the finale anyways, but I would’ve kept watching for as long as they were making it.

On the difference between writing books and writing for TV:

When I’m writing a book, I have to really sink into that story. Other people are different, but I can’t sit there and take calls or Zooms in between sitting down to write. I have to be very much locked into a story and put myself into a trance to get there. That’s very different from TV writing, where it’s much more of a group effort. It's a lot of meetings and a lot of random things — once the script is done, you’re still writing up ADR, or I’m looking at trailer copy or merch. There’s a lot of stuff I do that has nothing to do with writing.

Check out the rest of Bustle’s Entertainers Issue here, featuring interviews with Brittany Broski, Chloe Fineman, Domhnall Gleeson, Janelle James, KATSEYE, Kesha, Jinkx Monsoon, and Nicole Scherzinger.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.