Summer Vacation Reading

I can’t believe I read four books in July! I wanted to share my book reviews early in case people are planning August vacations and looking for summer vacation reading ideas.

This month I read The Attachments by Rainbow Rowell, The Vacationers by Emma Straub, Summer House With Swimming Pool by Herman Koch, and All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, 

The Attachments was a fun recommendation from Danielle. I was intrigued by the Amazon synopsis:

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now- reading other people’s e-mail. ….

I’m pretty sure my work email is monitored (whose isn’t these days?) and while I try to be careful, I know I send emails that I wouldn’t read by a wide audience!

This was a fun read, with some unexpected similarities to Dear Mr. Knightly, which I read last month. 

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As my summer vacation plans fell through, I decided to live vicariously by reading books about family vacations.

The Vacationers is about the Posts’ two-week vacation in Mallorca, where they rented a house with a pool. The vacationers include Franny and Jim, their adult son and his girlfriend, their daughter who just graduated from college, and Franny’s best gay friend and his husband. Each chapter of the book recounts a different day of the vacation, and while most of the story is told from Franny’s point of view, we hear from the other characters enough to at least get a glimpse of their perspectives.

While the Amazon synopsis includes this teaser

[O]ver the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

even the most dramatic events seemed to be muted by a relaxed vacation mood. I think this is a good beach read–interesting enough to make you want to keep reading–but largely forgettable.

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Since I read The Dinner last year, I expected Summer House With Swimming Pool to be much darker than The Vacationers, and it was. The main character is a general practice physician whose attitude may make you wonder how much your doctor really cares about you!

From the Amazon synopsis:

Marc, his wife, and their two beautiful teenage daughters agreed to spend a week at the Meier’s extravagant summer home on the Mediterranean. Joined by Ralph and his striking wife Judith, her mother, and film director Stanley Forbes and his much younger girlfriend, the large group settles in for days of sunshine, wine tasting, and trips to the beach. But when a violent incident disrupts the idyll, darker motivations are revealed, and suddenly no one can be trusted. 

This story has lots of twists and turns, and goes in unexpected directions. This would be a good beach read for a rainy day, because it’s hard to put down.

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Amazon kept suggesting that I read All The Light We Cannot See , and it got high marks on GoodReads, so gave in to the pressure even though it hardly fits the bill as light summer reading. As stated on Amazon, this book is “about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.”

This was a really good book that touched me on many levels. The characters are compelling, especially the “German boy” who struggles with himself as he tries to do the right thing in the face of so much pressure to do wrong. The “blind French girl” is inspiring in her perseverance against great odds, and her bravery in finding joy in the simple pleasures that even the war couldn’t take away. I was glad that the book didn’t end with the war, because it also made me think about how people go on after living through such desperate circumstances. You can take this one to the beach, but it will stay with you after you get home.

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What kinds of books do you like to read on vacation?