With the school year wrapping up fast, students are beginning to make summer plans. What better way to spend the summer than lounging at the beach with a nice, comforting, warm-weather-themed book? Below is a list of book recommendations for the summer season, each filled with sunshiney characters and warm vibes.
Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
Pages: 400
Rating: 4/5
Genre(s): Romance
Intended Audience: Young Adult
About: Lina has decided to spend the summer in Italy to uncover the truth about her dead mother. Before her mother died, she wanted Lina to get to know her father who lives in Italy. As she tries to find out the truth about her life, she also finds love that she didn’t expect. This book gives off the best summer vibe of the perfect summer.
Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen
Pages: 336
Rating: 4/5
Genre(s): Fantasy, Historical Inspired, Retellings
Intended Audience: Young Adult
Trigger Warnings: blood, implied suicide, historical violence, slavery
About: Simi prayed to the gods once, and now she serves them as an ancient African mermaid called a Mami Wata. As the Mami Wata, her job is to collect all the souls that died in the water and help them journey on safely. But when an enslaved boy gets thrown off a ship traveling to the Americas, Simi breaks the one ancient decree: never save a life. Now the boy knows more than he should, the gods are furious, and all other Mami Wata are in danger. An enchanting take on The Little Mermaid, the Skin of the Sea is a beautiful insight into African culture and religion but in an engaging and magical way.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Pages: 377
Rating: 4/5
Genre(s): Romance
Intended Audience: Adult
Trigger warnings: mental illnesses, sexual content
About: Successful book agent Nora Stephens makes her work her life. While this allows her to be passionate and support her clients, it makes her life as busy and bustling as the city she calls home: New York. During publishing’s slow season in the summer months, Nora’s sister Libby convinces her to take a vacation to a small town in North Carolina, a setting in one of Nora’s client’s books. In Sunshine Falls, Nora is surprised to see an enemy from the big city, Charlie Lastra, a workaholic editor with whom she once had a disastrous lunch. Despite their past, the pair find themselves growing closer within the smaller community.
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Pages: 355
Rating:5/5
Genre(s): Historical Fiction, Music
Intended Audience: Young Adult
Trigger Warnings: drug abuse
About: It’s L.A. in the 1960s and the music industry is full of life. Daisy Jones grew up in L.A without have much of a family life, but that just meant she was out making connections before she was sixteen. Daisy’s voice gets noticed and before long she’s skyrocketing to fame; right next to the band The Six. The Six grew from humble roots with lead singer Billy Dunne. Although the band and Daisy Jones are becoming famous on their own, their producer believes that they’ll become even bigger together. Daisy Jones combines with The Six to make some of the best music and drama ever recorded. Reid writes this book documentary style, a unique choice in a format that makes the characters even more complex and captures readers in an aesthetic, summery, band of legends.
Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Pages: 400
Rating: 5/5
Genre(s): Romance
Intended Audience: Young Adult
About: Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been academic rivals all throughout high school. When Neil wins the title of valedictorian, Rowan is highly disappointed in herself but will not let Neil get the last win. At the end of the school year, the seniors participate in an assassin-style scavenger hunt called Howl for a large prize. Rowan is determined to take Neil down in the game of Howl, but the finale that she thought would set them apart has surprisingly brought them together.
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Pages: 384
Rating: 5/5
Genre(s): Coming Of Age, Mystery, Romance
Intended Audience: Adult
Trigger warnings: domestic abuse, murder
About: Growing up in the swamps of North Carolina, Kya Clark is no stranger to abandonment. After her mother and siblings left her, and her abusive father disappeared, she is left to fend for herself. As she grows older, she is helped by her older brother’s friend, Tate Walker, who teaches her to read. After he leaves for college, she gets involved with the popular boy from town, Chase Andrews. When Chase is later suspected to be murdered, Kya becomes the prime suspect and has to fight against prejudice to prove her innocence.
Circe by Madeline Miller
Pages: 393
Rating: 5/5
Genre(s): Retelling, Fantasy, Romance
Intended Audience: Adult
Trigger Warnings: Sexual assualt, general violence
About: Circe is a minor character in The Odyssey. All anyone really knows about her is that she turns men into pigs and that she’s a sorceress. Relating Circe’s isolating childhood and her exile to Aeaea, Miller details how Circe becomes the witch we know in The Odyssey. The plot of this novel takes the reader past Odysseus leaving Aeaea and to Circe meeting his wife and son. Shifting the perspective from the male-dominated Greek myths, this feminist novel holds a powerful message about humanity.
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Pages:256
Rating: 5/5
Genre(s): psychological thriller
Intended Audience: Young Adult
Trigger Warnings: death
About: We Were Liars is a psychological thriller made to mess with your mind. The main character Cadence is at her vacation house with her whole family on an island. After suffering an accident she has to remember what’s real and what is fake. This book will take you through a rollercoaster of emotions.
A Recipe for Friendship by Elisabeth K. Forrester
Pages: 45
Rating: 5/5
Genre(s): Historical Fiction, magical realism
Intended Audience: Older kids
Bonus: This was written by local author Elisabeth Forrester and features the town of Carlisle.
About: A young girl, Laura, stumbles upon an old typewriter hidden away in her attic. Engraved on the typewriter is the name Sophie Swarner. Laura’s curious nature takes over as she tries to figure out the identity of the object’s former owner. Lucky for Laura, she finds herself also in possession of a little magic that she uses to her advantage to travel back in time. The story follows Laura as she makes friends with Sophie and enjoys an old-fashioned summer in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Kline
Pages: 394
Rating: 5/5
Genre(s): Magical Realism, Contemporary
Intended Audience: Young Adult
About: Linus Baker is a Case Worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, and he lives the definition of a quiet life. That is until he’s given a highly classified assignment, in which he must travel and live on the island of Marysas where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. As Linus grows closer with the children and their secretive caretaker, Arthur Parnassus, he realizes that what he knows and believes about the world is wrong. The House in the Cerulean Sea is a cozy, cheerful summer read full of found family, and timeless writing style, but it also encourages readers to think and reflect on our world and society.
The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
Pages:304
Rating: 4/5
Genre(s): Romance
Intended Audience: Young Adult
About: The Summer I Turned Pretty is the perfect summer read. The main character Belly visits her mom’s best friend’s vacation house every summer, but this summer is different. This summer she finds herself lost in a love triangle between two brothers. She must find who she has true feelings for. This book also has a T.V. show to go with the perfect summer vibe.
100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons
Pages: 311
Rating: 5/5
Genre(s): Romance
Intended Audience: Young Adul
About: Tessa Dickinson is a sixteen-year-old homeschooled poet, who was perfectly content with her perfectly neat room, and perfectly small life, but that is all uprooted when she is involved in a car accident that robs her of sight. After the accident Tessa spirals into a pit of depression, convinced no one can understand her pain, and nothing will make it any better. She doesn’t leave the house, doesn’t interact with anyone, and most importantly doesn’t write poems; until Weston. Her grandparents hire Weston to come and write Tessa’s poems as she dictates them, and although Tessa hates him upon their first meeting, Weston is persistent in showing Tessa that life can be good again. In this cute dual-point-of-view romance, Emmons artfully weaves the perfect summer story filled with the sweetest dates and uplifting themes.
The Siren by Kierra Cass
Pages: 276
Rating: 3/5
Genre(s): Mythical, Romance
Intended Audience: Young Adult
About: Kahlen is a siren, forbidden from talking to humans, working for the Ocean, who must consume people to survive. She and her three sisters, live in a small Northeast town, where nothing happens and no one asks questions about where the three mute girls come from. Kahlen follows the Ocean’s rules, staying silent and blending in until she meets Akinli who truly understands her and makes her follow her heart instead of the Ocean’s rigid rules for once. A mix between The Fault in Our Stars, and The Little Mermaid, this book has all the coastal summer feels.
