Angie gets asked out on her first date by local high school basketball star Jack Duluth.

While Jack introduces Angie to a crowd whose behavior conflicts with the way she was raised, she retains her sense of propriety and never becomes a flirt or goes wild.

Lorraine does not behave properly (according to the mores of the time), and because of this is embarrassed to be with her own family (first on the Fourth of July, then when she sees Angie and Jack out on a date, and finally when she leaves for school).

Some critics claim that "the modern period of young adult literature is often said to have begun with Seventeenth Summer".

Although the relationship between Jack and Angie remains chaste, the novel addresses the topic of sexuality and desire in a way that had not been done before in a work of adolescent fiction.