Summer is coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean devouring a hot book has to stop. A perfect summer day, for some, includes lounging by the pool or on the beach, with some shades on and a good book in your hands. With the gorgeous weather we’ve been having recently, here are some lovely reads for an ideal (romantic) hot girl summer.
Contemporary
Circe by Madeline Miller
Perfect for those who love Greek mythology, and even more fitting for those who love a gorgeously-spun feminist retelling. The novel is based on Circe, the daughter of Helios – but she is not like her powerful father. She turns to the mortal world for companionship and discovers she does have power: the power of witchcraft. She is banished to a deserted island, where she crosses paths with gods and heroes alike. The novel is currently being adapted by HBO for a television series.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
A murder mystery immersed in nature and wild beauty, the Where the Crawdads Sing follows the “Marsh Girl” of Barkley Cove, a slumbering fishing village. Kya Clark has grown up in the marsh and is deemed ineligible for polite society. When beloved Chase Andrews is discovered dead in 1969, Kya is instantly a suspect. But she is not what they say.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Follow the lives and hardships of twelve immensely different characters in this kinetic and magnetic novel. They are mostly women, black and British, and they tell the tales of their friends, families, and lovers across countries and time. Winner of the 2019 Man Booker prize, you will laugh and be enthralled by Evaristo’s writing style and the threads she weaves.
Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro
All these characters are connected in these five short stories wherein music is the binding force. The novel sings the songs of a singer who was once popular, striving for the glow of fame once more; a singer-songwriter who unknowingly becomes entangled in a failing marriage of a couple he has just met; a talented jazz musician in need of recognition who believes plastic surgery will augment his career; and much more. If you love music, and you love love, these short stories are the perfect fit.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This novel is brilliant and exquisitely written, but pretty much right off the bat, it needs a trigger warning. It follows four university graduates and best friends who move to New York, running solely on ambition and very little finances. Willem is a kind and classically handsome aspiring actor; JB, an occasionally cruel and shrewd painter trying to make it in the world of art; Malcolm, a confused and talented architect; and Jude- enigmatic, ingenious, and their glue. Yanagihara described the novel as an ombre: it gradually becomes darker as their lives progress, throughout their successes. One of them is irrevocably scarred by their past, and they all fear that it will define them forever.
Non-Fiction
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
In this stunningly raw and honest account, Didion explores the aftermath of her daughter’s sudden illness, and thereafter, her husband’s sudden death. She details how she tried (and sometimes failed) to make sense of her world without foundations and life as she knew it. It explores suffering, grief, love, and marriage in the most soul-baring of ways.
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
An extended essay by Woolf, it is based on a series of lectures she gave at two women’s colleges at Cambridge University in 1928. It is a feminist text with a fictional narrator and narrative, and argues for both a “liberal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy”.
Classics
Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald’s last novel is set in the late 1920s on the French Riviera and details the tragic affair between Rosemary Hoyt, a young actress, and Dick and Nicole, an American couple. Dick is Nicole’s husband and doctor- her wealth tempts him into a lifestyle that is not his own. It is steamy, provocative and an intense study of the romantic concept of character.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
A haunting and passionate classic (also known as Bella Swan’s favourite book), Wuthering Heights is renowned for its gothic setting and tortured love affairs. Nelly Dean, the housekeeper, tells the story of the turbulent relationship between the daughter of the gentry, Cathay, and Heathcliff, their neighbour’s adopted son.
Lighter Reads
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Set in Malibu, August 1983, the day of the much-anticipated annual end-of-summer party extravaganza. Nina Riva, supermodel and talented surfer, is hosting, and everybody adores the famous Rivas. She and her siblings are the children of Mick Riva, the iconic singer. This one chaotic and extravagant night will have the family’s secrets begin to surface and bubble over.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
A heartwarming, uplifting and witty novel about a woman making her way through the drudgery of life – a completely adequate life, a 100% fine life. Everything is timetabled so that she doesn’t have to deal with social situations (wherein she struggles). Yet, when she and Raymond, the unhygienic IT guy from work, save Sammy, an elderly man who has fallen, the bond between the three of them takes them out of their solitary lifestyles. It details her journey as she learns to open her heart, and how that can open up the world.
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
Olive is perpetually unlucky, unlike her identical twin Ami, who seems to possess luck in spades. She is forced to socialise with her nemesis, Ethan, the best man at Ami’s wedding. After the whole wedding party gets food poisoning, the only two unscathed are… Olive and Ethan. They put aside their animosity for each other so that they can go on the all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii, determined to give each other a wide berth. However, when Olive sees her future boss and tells a fib, it results in her and Ethan having to pretend to be lovestruck newlyweds. And as the game of pretend goes on, the less she doesn’t mind playing…
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
It is the age old question: what happens when we die? Where do we go? The answer, as Nora Seeds finds out, is the Midnight Library. It is the place between life and death, where every book gives you the chance to experience another life you could have lived if just one thing was different. While going through all of these different options and lives, she must decide what she truly desires, and what makes life worth living.
Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Life can be said to be poetry, and every chapter in this novel is a poem. Xiomara Batista is from a devout Catholic family and lives in Harlem. She has a lot to say – about her family, religion, her place in this unfair world -and pours it all into her writing. This is the story of how she learns to speak her poems into the world, and fiercely find her way in it as well.
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
It is summer, and the seemingly perfect Sinclair family is spending it on their private island off the coast of Massachusetts, as is their norm. It is the story of the Liars – four best friends whose friendship darkens and becomes destructive. A heady suspenseful novel of twists and turns entangled with lies, and eventually, the truth.
The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
This (demonstrative adjective) is a love story told by a nameless narrator in the structure of a dictionary. These entries are a peek behind the curtain into the intimate moments of a relationship and is a poignant portrait of love in our time.
More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
If you loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this is the novel for you. Aaron Soto is 16 and struggling to find happiness, as much as he reaches for it, in the aftermath of a family tragedy. Genevieve, his girlfriend, helps but it is when he meets Thomas, his new best friend, that he really starts to confront his past and his future. They steadily become closer, and he begins to discover things about himself that threaten his shaky happiness. He considers going to the Leteo Institute, which erases the memories of those who have gone through traumatic events, in order to straighten himself out. However, will he do this at the cost of himself?