Top 10 Summer Reads

Posted July 16, 2014 / Book Lists, Features / 5 Comments

Top 10 Books to Read in the Summertime

My best book season is the summertime. There’s nothing better than sitting outside under a tree or on the beach reading a book. I love stories about girls who head off to some beachy destination, fall in love, and make new friends. I’m a sucker for a summer YA novel. Here are my top picks for summertime. Some of them are book series and some are standalones, listed in no particular order. Enjoy!

  1. Summer series by Katherine Applegate  ||  This series includes Beach Blondes, Spring Break, Tan Lines, and Sun-Kissed Christmas. For some reason, they were published out of order; I recommend reading them as I listed them here. Beach Blondes and Tan Lines technically contain three books apiece, so they look huge. The stories go by very quickly and are a little less fluffy than they seem. The gist is that the main character, who is of course named Summer, heads down to Florida for the summer/spring break/summer again/Christmas. She meets three guys: Adam, the rich guy; Diver, the mysterious guy; and Seth, the guy with a girlfriend. Add in the typical YA drama and a little more serious stuff, and you’ve got this series that’s perfect to read on the beach.
  2. Summer series by Jenny Han  ||  Apparently these two series’ have unoriginal names. This series includes The Summer I Turned Pretty, It’s Not Summer Without You, and We’ll Always Have Summer. I could not stop reading these. I wish I could erase my memory and read them all over again. Every summer, Belly heads down to her family’s beach house and sees the two boys: Conrad and Jeremiah. In most cases, I know immediately which boy I’d like the character to end up. In this book, that wasn’t so clear. I liked watching Belly each summer and wondering endlessly about which boy she’d end up with.
  3. Summer Boys series by Hailey Abbott  ||  Are you noticing a pattern? This is another summery series where girls have to decide and fight over which boy they end up with. This time, it’s three cousins: Beth, Ella, and Jamie. This series includes Summer Boys, Next Summer, After Summer, and Last Summer. Not too much to say that hasn’t already been said, but I enjoyed this series as much as the other two.
  4. Rules of Summer by Joanna Philbin  ||  This is one of my favorite books from 2014, and the sequel just came out! Rory heads off to the Hamptons to be an errand girl for a rich family over the summer. Isabel is the youngest daughter in the family. The two girls get involved with boys they shouldn’t, and risk thier newly formed friendship. I’m very excited to get my hands on the next book in the series, because I’m dying to know what happens next for the two of them.
  5. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen  ||  This is one of my favorite Sarah Dessen books. Realistically, you could read any of her books as a great summer read. I particularly like this one because the main character, Macy, comes out of her shell as the summer/book go on. “It’s all in the view. That’s what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you’d better make every second count.”
  6. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares  ||  ​If you somehow missed this series in middle school, now’s the time to read it. These are the books that got me into my phase involving girls in summertime.
  7. Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella  ||  ​This breaks my pattern a little bit, but I love this book. It’s a quick, funny read about a girl with a lot of little secrets. She spills everything to a stranger on an airplane, then ends up running into him again in the worst possible scenario. This is a great author for summer reads; she can be laugh-out-loud funny at times. Check out Remember Me? too!
  8. L.A. Candy series by Lauren Conrad  ||  ​I’ve only read the first book of this series, but I was pleasantly surprised. When I went off to college and had no time for reading, the series fell off my radar. This summer, I plan to pick up the next books and finish it off. I enjoy Lauren Conrad’s writing style and the story is pretty similar to her real life…
  9. The Pact by Jodi Picoult  ||  Like your summer reads a little heavier? Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. You can tell she’s incredibly intelligent and does a lot of medical and legal research for her books. Her books always have some kind of unexpected twist and you can’t put them down. This summer, I recommend The Pact.
  10. The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Anne Brashares  ||  Two sisters return to their family’s beach house for the summer and are reuinted with Paul, the boy next door. This is another great summer read where, like the rest, the two girls have to face love, secrets, and each other.

 

5 responses to “Top 10 Summer Reads

  1. I love your list! I am complete sucker for YA romance as well, but I am a bigger Jodi Picoult fan! The Pact is one of my favorite books, but I like The Truth About Forever and mostly the rest of Sarah Dessen’s books as well. I couldn’t get into L.A. Candy, but maybe I should give it another try. Great recommendations! 🙂

    • Thank you! I read LA Candy so long ago and remember it was during my Lauren Conrad obsession phase haha I still have to finish the series but I remember liking it a lot

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