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Every Year After Prime Video Series Gave Me The Summer Yearning I Didn't Know I Needed
Prime Video's latest romance adaptation is the show The Summer I Turned Pretty thinks it is
I read Every Summer After before this adaptation dropped and I went in fully prepared to be disappointed. That's just the deal you make with yourself as a book girlie. You lower your expectations, you sit down, and you hope the casting is at least good.
Eight episodes later I was sitting with my laptop half closed just staring into the middle distance thinking about Sam Floric. That hasn't happened in a while.
For anyone who doesn't know the story, Percy is called back to Barry's Bay after ten years away for the funeral of Sue, the mother of Sam and Charlie, two brothers she spent six summers growing up alongside. She and Sam were everything to each other. Then something happened that she spent a decade running from.
The show unfolds across both timelines simultaneously, past and present weaving together until all the pieces click into place. The yearn factor is a solid 10 out of 10. I said what I said.
TMJ Rating: 🍿🍿🍿🍿/5
What You Need to Know
Percy hasn't been back to Barry's Bay in ten years. She left after a summer that blew up her closest friendships and the love of her life simultaneously, and she has spent every year since quietly falling apart about it. A phone call from Charlie about Sue's death brings her back.
Sam is there. 10 years of grief and guilt and unfinished business are also there. The show covers six summers in flashback while the present day unravels in real time, and the structure works beautifully. You're always in both timelines emotionally even when you're only watching one.
The yearn is exceptional. I need to be clear about that upfront. The tension between Percy and Sam across eight episodes is the kind that makes you pause the show just to compose yourself. Sadie Soverall and Matt Cornett have chemistry that feels completely lived in and the slow burn is so well paced that when things finally start moving you feel genuinely relieved.
The female friendships are also handled with way more care than the book gave them, which is the adaptation's smartest choice. Shantel and Delilah are fully realised people here rather than supporting characters who exist to reflect Percy's feelings back at her.
Why The Show is Better Than The Book
I'll say it directly. The show improves on the source material in almost every meaningful way and I don't say that lightly as someone who read it first.
The biggest upgrade is Delilah. In the book she's a plot device. Here she has her own arc, her own grief, her own terrible decisions and her own redemption. I genuinely couldn't stand her in episode one and by the finale I was completely on her side. That's good writing and even better acting.
The show also gives proper weight to why Percy slept with Charlie. The book rushes through the emotional context. Here it's built carefully enough that you understand it even when it still stings. That's the difference between a story beat that feels cheap and one that actually lands. The show also adds the three updates device from the book in ways that feel organic rather than performed. Small detail. Big impact.
The needle drops deserve their own mention because they're doing actual storytelling work throughout. Mumford and Sons' Badlands as Percy first returns to the lake. Lana Del Rey in episode three. Harry Styles' Fine Line in the finale. The soundtrack is stacked and placed with intention.
The one missed opportunity is Down Bad, which would have fit perfectly in at least three separate moments, but Taylor's music probably costs more than the entire production budget and I accept this. Read XO, Kitty - The Most Chaotic Netflix Teen Show
The Casting Carried This Entire Show
Sadie Soverall as Percy is genuinely perfect. She plays younger Percy with this warm chaotic horror-obsessed energy that makes you fall for her immediately, then shifts to present day Percy carrying 10 years of unprocessed guilt with a quietness that hits completely differently. Both versions feel like the same person. That's hard to do.
Matt Cornett keeps Sam from tipping into sainthood, which is the trap the character falls into on the page. There's a scene where Sam finally loses it and takes a bat to a wooden bench and I cheered out loud because the release of it was so earned. Aurora Perrineau as Shantel is the supporting performance of the season. Her delivery is so natural and specific that she elevates every scene she appears in without ever overshadowing the leads.
The timeline switching does cause confusion in the middle episodes because both sets of actors are young enough to play either period convincingly. I had to clock hairstyles and wardrobe changes more than once to figure out where I was. Minor problem but a consistent one.
Some of the dialogue also goes slightly too sappy in moments that would hit harder with less. The show mostly earns its emotional beats through performance and then occasionally undercuts them with lines that feel written. You might like Your Fault London Has Great Chemistry and a Terrible Plot
My Final Verdict on Every Year After Prime Video Series
Every Year After Prime Video Series is warm and specific and emotionally earned in a way that most romance adaptations genuinely aren't. The comparisons to The Summer I Turned Pretty are inevitable and slightly unfair to both shows but if I'm honest this one hit me harder. Better supporting characters, better use of its dual timeline, and a central relationship built on actual deep friendship rather than just summer longing.
Sam's speech at Sue's memorial is the best scene of the whole show and I won't say anything else about it except that I had to pause the episode twice. The finale's you came home callback lands exactly the way it should and then the credits roll slightly too fast. I would have taken one more scene of Percy and Sam in the present without complaint.
Read the book if you haven't. Then watch the show. Then come find me so we can talk about Sam Floric at length because I have a lot to say and not enough people in my life who have watched this yet.
Are you team read the book first or go in completely fresh? Tell me in the comments because I think it genuinely changes the whole experience.
