Books For Your Summer Reading List

Back in high school, a summer reading list was a chore–something to put off as long as possible and tackle in the last days of August or in the nights before the dreaded Summer Reading Test that always got my English grade off to a bad start. Now that I get to read what I want, when I want, making my summer reading is much more fun.

Here are some books that I’ve read lately that you might want to put on your summer reading list.

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.

From the Amazon.com review:

Hazel is sixteen, with terminal cancer, when she meets Augustus at her kids-with-cancer support group. The two are kindred spirits, sharing an irreverent sense of humor and immense charm, and watching them fall in love even as they face universal questions of the human condition–How will I be remembered? Does my life, and will my death, have meaning?–has a raw honesty that is deeply moving. –Seira Wilson

This is a bittersweet story in every sense of the word. I loved the snarky humor that let Hazel and Augustus laugh at even the bleakest situations, and their positive yet realistic outlooks. The ending is not as predictable as you might think, but it did have tears rolling down my cheeks.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman.

From the Amazon.com book description:

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. ….

This story takes place in post-World War I western Australia. Although I am not usually drawn to historical fiction, the moral dilemma at the heart of this story is surprisingly timeless–and timely–with no easy solution. While I was reading this book, an adoption case with an equally anguishing outcome was being argued at the Supreme Court (the Court has not yet decided how it will resolve the issues in the heart-breaking case of Adoptive Parents v. Baby Girl).

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.

From the Amazon.com book description:

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. …. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

I bumped this book to the top of my list when I saw that it was the May selection for the Healthy Living Blogs #HLBBookclub. Since I have my own fond memories of summer camp, and usually enjoy books that follow a group of friends through their lives, it was an easy sell. The story is mostly told from the perspective of Jules Jacobsen, perhaps the least “interesting” of the group of friends, at least the way she sees it. I really enjoyed seeing how the characters grew, matured, and made their way in life, and how their summer camp friendships tied them together, even as life events pulled them apart. An underlying question about how well you can really know even your “best” friends made this in an intriguing page-turner.

(If you read this book, or just want to join the #HLBBookclub Twitter chat, mark your calendar for Monday, June 3rd, at 7:30 PM EST.)

What are you reading this summer?