My summer reading book was “The Summer I Turned Pretty” By Jenny Han.

My essential question is, why is society’s pressure to seek romantic relationships wrong? You may be wondering, how does this relate to your book? Well, this story is all about how this girl goes to this beach town that her mother’s best friend lives in every summer with her two boys. This is the last summer that the mother’s best friend, Susanna is alive. (Spoiler alert) The main character, Belly, has this pressure to fall in love with one of the brothers because her mother’s best friend’s dying wish is that Belly will fall in love with one of her sons. This essential question goes into the category societal, psychological, and relational.

Over the decades of human life, so many industries capitalize of the idea of love and the idea of falling in love. For an example, Netflix and Hallmark make millions for making and advertising romantic comedies for Christmas time, summer time, and spring time. The Music industry also makes millions and thousands for releasing songs that talk about falling in love, love at first sight, falling out of love or breaking up, and etc. My source, “Why are we so obsessed with romantic love- abode all other forms of love?” Written by Edaein O’Connell for Metro magazine, a news outlet in the UK, sat down with a relationship therapist, says that “We consume romantic love at young age just though Netflix and romantic books.. There’s such a emphasis on younger people falling in love in our society” (O’Connell)

All of these different types of media makes us believe in love, in true love. Unfortunately, they also make us believe that we’re better in abusive relationships than being by ourselves “Many people will attest to staying in unhappy relationships because they percieve it as better than being alone.”(O’Connell) So many industries capitalize on this idea of being in love and STAYING in love. There’s this idea that if you aren’t in love, you’re lonely and you aren’t wanted by a romantic partner. “So many tv programs have contributed to the idea of a happy-ever-after lifestyle, rather than teaching the importance of self love, personal boundaries and fulfillment”(O’Connell) when people stay in horrible relationships, they risk making excuses for their partners bad behavior.

Overview: Once we breakaway from only living for romance we get happier when we focus on things making us happy. Yes, romantic love makes us feel all of these fuzzy feelings that we capture and we act as if they’re metaphorically fireflies in a jar. But, romantic love isn’t a place to find our self fulfillment.