Team Conrad, Team Jeremiah or Team Belly? Since 2022, Prime Video viewers have been debating those options. YA readers began making their picks first, when “The Summer I Turned Pretty” initially debuted on the page via author Jenny Han’s 2009–11 trilogy, which preceded her “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” novels. On streaming, the Lola Tung-led series about a young woman torn between two brothers has become nothing less than a sensation, however, tripling its global viewership between Season 1 and the now-airing Season 3.
“It’s not unheard of, but it’s pretty rare,” Head of Prime Video Australia and New Zealand Hwei Loke tells Variety AU/NZ about the show’s audience growth, an achievement that it notched up after just the first three episodes in its third and final season.
“And I think this is such a great reflection on how strongly fans have grown up with this series from Season 1’s launch, and growing season on season with it. It means that fans are just coming along for the ride, and it’s picking up word of mouth and traction along the way,” Loke continues.
“It also started out with this inbuilt IP and fandom from the series itself, and then has even grown from that. So I think what you’re seeing is the growth from an inbuilt fan audience in the book going to that screen adaptation, and deepening that engagement with fans along the way.”
In its initial seven days from its mid-July bow, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Season 3 eclipsed Season 2’s viewership by 40 percent, with 25 million viewers watching. Unsurprisingly, that made it the number-one title on the platform during its first week. Promising by the end of its 11 episodes to deliver an answer to whether Tung’s Isabel “Belly” Conklin will choose the older, brooding Conrad Fisher (Christopher Briney) or his younger, more-outgoing sibling Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), or neither, the show’s farewell run has already become the fifth most-watched returning season on the streamer, behind only “Reacher” Season 3 and Season 2, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 2 and “The Boys” Season 4.
Prime Video is marking that success Down Under in a unique way: with Prime Book Club LIVE, a free fan event designed to celebrate not just “The Summer I Turned Pretty” but the platform’s expanding YA focus. Han, who is also the series’ showrunner, plus Tung and fellow co-star Rain Spencer have made the trip to Sydney to attend, as has author Mercedes Ron, the author of the “Culpable” trilogy novels. Film adaptations “Culpa Mia (My Fault)” and “Culpa Tuya (Your Fault)” have been reaching the platform annually since 2023, with “Culpa Nuestra (Our Fault)” following this October.
“This is such an exciting moment for our YA content right now. We’re having such a surge of these fantastic book-to-screen adaptations that are resonating and engaging with our audience,” explains Loke. “So to have them be able to come to Australia — we know it’s far away, but for our fans to be able to deepen that engagement with them, it’s really exciting.”
“We know that there are fans from the books that have come to love the series — and to have the talent here who are actually bringing those series to life, not just in the show, but the writers who are so deeply involved in the show.”
More than half of “The Summer I Turned Pretty’s” audience is from outside of the US, and Loke notes that Australia’s viewership patterns are well-reflected by the worldwide numbers. “That global stat, the 25 million viewers in the first seven days, is a really great representation of how it’s been doing in Australia as well,” she advises.
“It’s been incredible to see, not only just on the platform but across our socials, how it’s been picking up groundswell — people talking about Team Conrad, Team Jeremiah, who’s Belly going to pick, speculation about Easter eggs in every single little episode, deep diving into the song choices that Jenny Han has selected. It’s been an incredible response from the fans.”
On the subject of big reactions, when it was announced before season three of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” premiered, Prime Book Club LIVE tickets sold out instantly. “They were free, but they went in ten seconds,” Loke shares. Plans to have more available at the door at the Thursday, July 31 event were scrapped as a result in order to manage the crowd size, but the response, as well as the popularity of the series in Australia, has hit home for the special guests.
“I think that when you’re so far away, you can see the groundswell of things happening on social, but it can come on a global scale, so it’s hard imagine how the local Australian fans have reacted. And I knew that once they’ve touched down, the response would be enormous,” says Loke. “So for them to get a firsthand look at the fandom is really great as well.”
Loke notes that popularity isn’t the only factor driving Prime Video’s YA push of late, which also spans the likes of 2025 series “We Were Liars,” 2024 debut “Maxton Hall” and 2023 film “Red, White & Royal Blue.” A second season of “Maxton Hall” and a sequel to “Red, White & Royal Blue” are in the works.
“The YA audience, Gen Z, they represent some of the most passionate, engaged and community-driven segments in the entertainment industry today. They’re not just reading content or watching content — they’re doing both. They’re reading it, watching it, then they’re remixing it, sharing it among their audiences. And they’re building online communities around it, especially on platforms like BookTok on TikTok, for example.”
“We’ve seen how we can jump on that and leverage how book-to-stream adaptations can also become cultural moments with these audiences, and they can deepen the engagement. And these stories speak to young audiences in deeply emotional and authentic way. So by investing in YA for us, it’s not just about chasing trends, but we’re cultivating this new, next generation of lifelong fans, not only for our series but for our platforms.”
The aim is to host more Australian events like Prime Book Club LIVE. What does the first mean for the platform Down Under? “We’re all about creating those in real-life connections with our audiences, not just about bringing content to them, but also deepening that engagement,” advises Loke. “We’re incredibly proud to be able to bring these moments from audiences, and that’s something that Prime Video wants to deliver to our fans as a point of differentiation.”
Championing the global YA slate with local audiences remains the platform’s approach to the genre for now, but Loke considers 2023 series “Class of ’07” with Emily Browning and Caitlin Stasey, plus 2024-rom-com feature “Five Blind Dates,” to be Australian examples in the genre — just without the page-to-streaming journey. “That’s not to say that we wouldn’t be considering more for the future,” she explains.
Outside of YA, the novel-to-screen route has proven a thriving path already for two of Prime Video’s 31 Australian Originals so far: “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” and “The Narrow Road to the Deep North.” Led by Sigourney Weaver, the former adapted Holly Ringland’s novel to multiple AACTAs and set viewership records at the time. Starring Jacob Elordi and directed by Justin Kurzel, the latter premiered at 2025’s Berlin International Film Festival.
“At the core, what we see it as are these are stories that are that are resonating with audiences — and ultimately, as a service that looks to deliver compelling stories to fans, that is what we want to do first and foremost,” reflects Loke.
“What we’re seeing from book-to-screen adaptations is you’re starting with a compelling story that you know is going to resonate with your audience. The second step is what Amazon brings to it, which is a customer-obsession first and foremost with everything that we do, to ensure that that story is brought to life in a true and authentic way, which is what we endeavour to do with all of our series — and the feedback that we’ve gotten tenfold from series like ‘The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart’ and ‘The Narrow to the Deep North’.”