Good Summer Books for Teens and Adults

Monhegan Island, Maine

Summer is time to read in a shady hammock or on the beach. If you can't travel, a good summer book will take you on vacation. I've compiled a list for adults and teens of recently published novels, some with links to full reviews posted earlier. If you want recommendations for younger readers, check out my Good YA Books for Tweens and Younger Teens.

Fiction for Adults

Right now I'm enjoying Euphoria by Maine author Lily King. It's a fictionalization of Margaret Mead's anthropological work and love affairs in New Guinea. I nearly majored in Anthropology at college and spent summers doing field research in remote areas so this subject fascinates me. Lily King is one of the authors whose books automatically go in my to be read stack. I loved her debut novel, The Pleasing Hour, about an American au pair in France. Father of the Rain was a beautifully written account of how alcoholism ruins a family. Euphoria seems just right for summer. Isn't the cover gorgeous? I'll post a full review after I finish reading it.

Summer vacation would be a good time to read the 770 page The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  The 2014 winner of the Pulitzer Prize follows a teenaged boy into an early adulthood muddled by drugs and art crime. This Dickensian novel with noir undertones is set in contemporary NYC, Vegas and Holland. It's bleak, verbose at times and received mixed reviews, but it's still worth reading.

If you crave something lighter, try Bread and Butter by Michelle Wildgen, a novel about brothers opening a trendy restaurant in Pennsylvania. Tempting Fate by Jane Green would be a good beach book for curious blog readers; the author used me as a physical model for her tempted protagonist! I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Rainbow Rowell's latest novel, Landline, next week.

Young Adult Fiction

If summer means travel and romance to you, you'll fall in love with The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith. During a blackout in NYC, a lonely rich girl gets trapped in an elevator with the building superintendent's son. As the star-crossed teens travel in opposite directions across the USA and Europe, they keep in touch via postcards. The chapters alternate between Lucy's and Owen's POV:

"But now, less than an hour later, he felt suddenly too aware of her, a presence beside him as prickly as the heat."

My only criticism of this charming novel is that there was too much focus on parents instead of peers, although that aspect would cross over well to an adult reader. Geography is similar to Smith's 2012 international hit, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. Smith writes contemporary but timeless stories in a voice true to teens. She's one of my favorite YA authors.

The YA book that is garnering the most attention right now is We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. This June bestseller has a commercially sensational plot but is written in a literary style with allusions to King Lear and Wuthering Heights. Preppy teenagers and their greedy moms squabble over their inheritance on a private island off Martha's Vineyard with tragic consequences. It's a modern fairy tale with a grouchy old king, spoiled princesses and a politically correct pauper-prince. The protagonist is acutely aware of her privilege:

"I own a well-used library card and not much else, though it is true I live in a grand house full of expensive, useless objects."

We Were Liars reminded me a bit of the adult thriller, Gone Girl. I enjoyed it, but I didn't connect with any of the characters. They felt too contrived, arrogant and self-absorbed. Still, I kept reading eagerly to the surprising twist at the end. We Were Liars has style. E. Lockhart is on my favorite YA authors list; I loved her The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks too.

The Summer of Letting Go by Gae Polisner is also set on the shore, but the characters are more down to earth. Fifteen-year-old Frankie blames herself for her brother's death, who drowned at the beach four years ago. Frankie was only eleven-years-old, but her napping parents left her in charge of her 4-year-old brother. Four years later, Frankie meets a little boy who is so similar to her lost brother that she wonders if reincarnation is possible.

The Summer of Letting Go was really strong on loss, grief and recovery, but I wished Frankie had some cool interests of her own and wasn't completely defined by her loss. Also her best friend had as much character as a Barbie doll, and the love triangle didn't work for me. The little boy, however, was a delightful character, and I loved his relationship with Frankie. The writing was good too.

If you are looking for a literary historical romance, I'd strongly recommend Going Over by Beth Kephart, set in Berlin during the Cold War. Beth Kephart is another favorite YA author. Teenaged boys and Stephen King fans would enjoy Brutal Youth by Anthony Breznican, about hazing and bullying at a Catholic school in Pennsylvania. Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando would be a good pick for older teen girls thinking ahead to college. As would be Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, which is set at a college in the midwest. Fangirl was one of my favorite books from last year; it would crossover well to adults. Actually, most of these books would appeal to both adults and teens. Young adult is only a marketing category.

Next up on my to be read list is Born Confused (2002) by Tanuja Desai Hidier before the sequel, Bombay Blues, is published this fall. The cover caught my attention and the blurb hooked me: Dimple Lala doesn't know what to think. Her parents are from India, and she's spent her whole life resisting their traditions. Then suddenly she gets to high school and everything Indian is trendy. To make matters worse, her parents arrange for her to meet a "suitable boy." Of course it doesn't go well -- until Dimple goes to a club and finds him spinning a magical web. Suddenly the suitable boy is suitable because of his sheer unsuitability. Complications ensue. This is a funny, thoughtful story about finding your heart, finding your culture, and finding your place in America.

Reviewer's Disclosure: Lily King's daughter is on my daughter's track team. I also know the author from Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. Jane Green is an art client and a friend. Beth Kephart is a blog buddy and a friend. I received free review copies of Bread & Butter, Tempting Fate, Roomies, Brutal Youth and Born Confused. The other books I purchased myself, most at indie bookstores.

Happy reading! I'm taking a week or two off from blogging to revise my work-in-progress before beta testing it on teen readers. Time for reflection...

Double review: Fangirl and Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell is a new addition to my favorite authors list. Her novels are hard to categorize. St. Martin's Giffin is a Macmillan imprint geared to adults, but you'll probably find Fangirl and Eleanor & Park shelved in the young adult section at the bookstore. Adults should crossover and read them too.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (September 2013) is one of the best books I've read this year. Abandoned by their mother at age eight, Cath and Wren became obsessed with Simon Snow fantasy books. By age eighteen, Cath is the most popular Simon Snow fan fiction writer online, with fans of her own. At college Wren wants to be a normal coed and distances herself from her identical twin. Cath holes up in her dorm room with power bars and escapes into Simon Snow's fantasy world. Her writing teacher and new friends struggle to pull Cath into the real world.

Don't let the fan fiction part make you miss out on a great book. I've always avoided fan fiction because it sounded like quasi-plagiarism, which is an attitude shared by the writing teacher in Fangirl. With due respect to J.K. Rowling's copyright, Rowell created a Simon Snow series inspired by Harry Potter. Dazzling excerpts from the Snow books and from the twins' fan fiction appear throughout the novel, echoing real world themes. Cath's fan fiction is distinct in style and spin: the two boy wizards are secretly in love with each other. The gay-romance conceit verges on satire without losing heart. Both fans and foes of fan fiction will find much to love in Fangirl.

Fangirl is also a coming of age story with a sweet misfit romance. College boys are mostly interested in casual hook ups or flirting for help with homework. It's no wonder that Cath retreats to a fantasy world, but the real world characters prove to be more compelling. Toward the end, I forced myself to read more slowly because I knew I'd miss the characters after the final page. Book bloggers of all ages are raving about and rereading Fangirl. Rowell taps into something universal in the terrifying but exhilarating experience of freshman year at college.

I love Rowell's fresh writing style:

Setting:  

"Cath lived in a dorm, like a young adult - like someone who was still on adulthood probation." 

Character: 

"He made everything look so easy...Even standing. You didn't realize how much work everyone else put into holding themselves until you saw Levi leaning against the wall....He made standing look like vertical lying down." 

On writing fiction other than fan fiction: 

"When I'm writing my own stuff, it's like swimming upstream. Or...falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall."

The book within a book: 

"'You don't do magic,' she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. 'You are magic.'" - Gemma T. Leslie's Simon Snow

Eleanor & Park (February 2013) has been a big crossover hit with teens and adults. The main characters are in high school, but the narrative is set in the 1980s. The pop culture references would appeal to nostalgic middle aged readers. It's a sweet misfit romance between an obese girl and a glam rock boy. This engaging book sets the cruelty of bullying against the power of love.

Adult readers will appreciate that the parents in Eleanor & Park are well developed characters with subplots of their own. Her abusive step father and battered mom undercut Eleanor's self confidence while Park struggles to please his macho GI joe dad. My one gripe was that Park's mom wasn't Korean beyond her thick accent. She cooked Midwestern food, decorated her house in suburban style and avoided talking about her childhood in Korea (she met her American husband during the Korean War.) I grew up with several Korean American friends and that culture left an imprint on the whole family and on me (I still crave Joy Kim Slote's scallion pancakes.) Fangirl does a much better job with the Mexican American characters, but they were less central to the narrative. Nonetheless, I was pleased that Rowell had multicultural elements to her books.

Rowell writes in the third person, shifting between Eleanor's and Park's POV:

"She would never belong in Park's living room. She never felt like she belonged anywhere, except when she was lying on her bed, pretending to be somewhere else." 

"Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive."

YA author John Green summed it up so well in the NYT: "Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it's like to be young and in love with a book."

Reviewer's Discloser: I bought Eleanor & Park in hardcover at Sherman's Books. I was too eager to wait until Fangirl arrived in Maine bookstores so I bought the ebook on its release date. Then I loved Fangirl so much that I bought a hardcover copy at Longfellow Books to reread later. I was surprised that Fangirl was 438 pages in print since it read like a book half that length. Rowell's Attachments, an office romance debut, is on my TBR list.

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@Barrie Summy

Good Summer Books, reading and swimming at Simpsons Point

One of my favorite summer routines is to bike eight miles roundtrip to the sea. A bunch of us locals and some summer people swim off the old boat ramp at Simpsons Point. We call ourselves the High Tide Club since the timing is key. At low tide, the estuary becomes mud flats, but the sun-baked mud warms the cold ocean at high tide (tip: swim within 2.5 hours of high tide either side). I painted this watercolor at Simpsons Point with a great blue heron for company. Other times I've seen bald eagles, snowy egrets, harbor seals and way too many green head flies.

If it isn't too buggy, I sit on a rock and read while my swimsuit dries. A good summer book is well written but not too heavy. It should be set in summer, ideally by the sea, or transports me to an exotic location. Most of my recommendations would appeal to both adults and teens so check all categories.

Fiction for Adults (with adult and teen characters)

The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver (2013 hardcover). This three generation family saga is set in a summer house on Buzzards Bay, MA. The book opens in 1942 with soldiers stationed next door, narrated at first from the point of view of the Scottish nanny and her charges (8 to 16-year-old girls.) The upstairs/downstairs shifting perspectives, well developed characters, domestic focus and wartime setting would appeal to Downton Abbey fans (the writing is better than the TV show's script.) The sense of place is marvelous, and I adore the cover (click on the image to enlarge) with the rough edge binding. I'm reading this one only on beach days to savor it.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy (2012 paperback) British vacationers in Nice, France are surprised to find a young woman swimming nude in their pool. The characters were well developed, but most lack moral fortitude. The most likable was Nina, a 13-year-old girl. At 156 pages this novella is physically light but emotionally heavy. I have mixed feelings about the message but appreciated the gorgeous setting and the fine writing: "Standing next to Kitty Finch was like being near a cork that had just popped out of a bottle. The first pop when gasses seem to escape and everything is sprinkled for one second with something intoxicating."

The Round House by Louise Erdrich (2012 hardcover) After his mother is brutally raped, a teenaged boy searches for clues on their reservation. Joe's summertime antics with his buddies add some much needed lightness and mirth. Erdrich has been a favorite author of mine since I read her first novel as a teen. I'd found some of her more recent books too grim, but this one has a good balance of gravity and hope, more similar to her earlier books. The Round House was written for adults but would cross over well to a teen audience, especially to teenaged boys. This 2012 novel won the National Book Award too.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple (2013 paperback). I reviewed this hilarious satire last month. The descriptions of rainy Seattle and ice-bound Antarctica will cool you down. Be prepared to laugh in public. Written for parents; my husband enjoyed this one too.

New Adult Fiction (ages 18 and up)

Such A Rush by Jennifer Echols (2013 paperback). Although the characters are high school seniors, this new adult novel was written for readers aged 18 and up. It includes life changing choices, gritty realism and safe sex. Leah has grown up in a series of trailer parks by airports. Not only does she dream of being a pilot, she works hard to make it happen. The evocative descriptions of her impoverished life juxtaposed with the joy of flight makes this book uplifting and inspiring. Her romantic involvements with the gorgeous twin boys, who inherit the airport, are soap-operatic fun. Leah is a wonderful, strong protagonist with a fresh perspective on life. The narrative voice is true to Leah's circumstances, but the writing is still very good: "To be ignored was a sentence without a period."

Just One Day by Gail Foreman (2013 hardcover). A college bound American girl has a fling with a Dutch Shakespeare actor in Paris. Reviewed April 2012.

Realistic Young Adult Fiction

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han (2009 paperback). For years Isabelle has been chasing after two brothers, who are friends of her brother. This is the first summer the boys notice "Belly" as more than the silly younger sister. The author does a fine job of weaving in flashbacks from previous summers to build complex, shifting relationships true to adolescent life. The narrative includes the bigger issues of divorce and cancer but doesn't dwell on anything dark or deep. This light romance would be best for tween or young teenaged girls, especially for reluctant readers. Now available in a box set with the other books in the trilogy: It's Not Summer Without You (2010) and We'll Always Have Summer (2011).

Three of my favorites from 2012 are now available in paperback:

1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. After her plane crashes, a young spy is captured by the Nazis in Occupied France. Best for mature teens and adults. Reviewed in September 2012. A Printz Honor Book and Edgar Award winner. One of the best books I've ever read. My husband loved it too. It was too scary for our 15-year-old daughter but her friend from Paris adored it. (This summer I'll be reading the companion book, Rose Under Fire, which is due out in September 2013.)

2. Small Damages by Beth Kephart. A pregnant American is sent to Spain to give her baby away before college. Simmering with secrets, savory flavor and dusty heat, this book is seasoned just right for summer. It would cross over well to adult fans of literary fiction too. I reviewed this novel on its release in July of 2012. Winner of the BEA Armchair Award, Best YA Novel of 2012. I reviewed two other Kephart paperbacks last week.

3. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. An American girl sits beside a charming Brit on a plane to England. One of my favorite romances. Reviewed in April 2012.

Paranormal Young Adult Fiction
New releases of 2013:

Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan is narrated in alternating boy/girl chapters. A boy is born invisible and only one girl can see him. This original premise serves as a good metaphor for falling in love and being truly seen and understood for the first time. The setting is summer on the Upper West Side of NYC. I especially enjoyed Stephen's creative attempts to hide his invisibility from his oblivious girlfriend. I love this type of magical realism. Halfway through, the narrative shifts from comic/surreal to a supernatural dual between good and evil. Despite having a mid-book shift in tone and two authors, the writing is seamless. It has some good lines:
"I am like a ghost who's never died."
"I am in the middle of Times Square. Lit like the inside of a video game." 
"Just as a fever makes cold feel colder, love can make loneliness feel lonelier."
Invisibility was a Main Point Books recommendation for teenaged boys and girls.

Ink by Amanda Sun (paperback). First book in a new paranormal romance trilogy set in Japan. Update: review is now posted.

Reviewer's Disclaimer:  I received ARCs of Small Damages, Ink and Rose Under Fire, but I bought the other books myself, most at indie bookstores. A couple were ebooks to read on the go. Author Beth Kephart is a blog buddy. I was not compensated for my reviews.

More Summer Books Posts:

Books in the City: Top Beach Reads & Top 10 Books Featuring Travel

From the House of Edward: A Tale and a List of Good Summer Books

Please add your recommendations in the comments. If you have a summer books post, let me know, and I'll link to it. Happy reading!

Brunswick Residents, Swimmers and Paddlers: the Marine Resources Committee might ask the Brunswick Town Council to consider a proposal to reopen Simpsons Point to motor boats. Simpsons Point is the only public swimming access to the sea in our town. The nearby Mere Point Boat Launch is already open to motor boats.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

In Just One Day by Gayle Forman, an American ditches a dull teen tour to run off with a Shakespeare actor from Holland. Allyson's romantic fantasy becomes a nightmare when Willem abandons her in Paris. Back in the USA for college, she circles into depression. Her helicopter mom expects Allyson to follow her father along the premed path, but the former straight-A student can't handle the advanced coursework. Her endless moping over Willem alienates her roommates too.

The one class that motivates Allyson is a Shakespeare elective. As Allyson contemplates the theme of identity in the plays, she realizes that what she misses isn't only Willem, but the free-spirited girl she was around him. In a logical leap that only a teenaged girl could make, Allyson decides that to find herself she must find the guy who abandoned her, even if this means defying her parents.

"And this is the truth. I may be only eighteen, but it already seems pretty obvious that the world is divided into two groups: the doers and the watchers. The people things happen to and the rest of us, who just sort of plod on with things."

Just One Day is a good example of an emerging genre called New Adult Fiction. The characters are no longer in high school but not quite independent adults either.  There are consequences from risky behavior (street brawls, drinking and hook ups), but the teen characters don't necessarily learn from their mistakes. In this innovative novel, the search for identity is like an audition in which the characters try on different personalities and sexual orientations like clothes.

Just One Day brought back a lot of memories for me. The summer after high school, I traveled around Europe with my friends staying in hostels, watching opera in Roman ruins, dancing in night clubs and going to a black tie dinner at an American embassy in a rumpled black sundress. During a term off from college, I also had a relationship with a gorgeous Dutchman who then disappeared from my life. Unlike Allyson, I didn't pin all my happiness on being with a guy, although I did relate to the challenge of transitioning to life at college and to the emotional turbulence of those years.

I'd recommend this young adult/new adult novel to mature teens and to adults who want to remember what it felt like to be swept away by the awe of discovery. The descriptions of Europe were so realistic that you can taste the gourmet food. Author Gayle Forman worked as a journalist abroad; she knows her settings and she knows her teens. She writes really well too. A sequel told in Willem's voice, Just One Year, will be released on October 15, 2013. I'd also recommend Forman's If I Stay, which has a sequel in the guy's voice (Where She Went).

Reviewer's Disclaimer: I bought this book on its release (January, 2013) without compensation.

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@Barrie Summy

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides and New Adult Fiction

Check out the Möbius wedding band cover art.

I love the way Jeffrey Eugenides writes with rich, intelligent prose. His characters, even the minor ones, are well developed, fallible and idiosyncratic. They feel like old friends by the time you finish the novel. His Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex (2002) is one of my favorite books. His recently released The Marriage Plot (2011), although not nearly as groundbreaking, also has wonderful characters on spiritual journeys. I especially loved the thoughtful Mitchell Grammaticus. Mitchell’s unhealthy obsession with Madeleine Hanna, and hers with mentally unbalanced Leonard Bankhead, and Leonard's with himself, felt comically true to life.

“Exactly!” Mitchell cried [to Madeleine] “You’re not attracted to me physically, O.K., fine. But who says I was ever attracted to you mentally?”

“My goal in life is to be an adjective,” Leonard said. “People would go around saying, ‘That was so Bankheadian.’” 

Eugenides is an author of my generation. The Marriage Plot, set at Brown University in the 1980’s, could have been a memoir written by one of my classmates at another Ivy League school. It captures the irritating intellectual climate of English Departments of that time, with a focus on Semiotics over Literature. The seminar scenes were tedious if well rendered, but I enjoyed his seedy portrait of campus life and Providence, Rhode Island. I could not get enough of the scenes set in India with Mitchell’s struggle for compassion over revulsion. This engaging novel sets forth an unflinching view of modern life and human shortcomings without resorting to cynicism.

At a college party: “The air was warm and moist, like a beer-scented rain forest.”

The Marriage Plot somehow manages to be both original and conventional. Eugenides superimposed a Victorian-style marriage plotline on the liberal, feminist 1980s with hilarious results. Unfortunately, this literary construct led to an unsatisfying ending that makes the reader acutely aware of the narrative structure. There was, however, something liberating in the reversal of expectations and the defiance of convention. It made me question the biases of traditional literature. I can’t stop thinking about the maddening ending but to say any more would spoil it.

“Sexual equality, good for women, had been bad for the novel. And divorce had undone it completely. What would it matter whom Emma married if she could file for separation later?”

Among book bloggers, there had been a call for a new genre: New Adult Fiction. These books would focus on the college years and nascent career building. There are surprisingly few books in this category, and such manuscripts are notoriously hard to sell. The few that I have read, I’ve loved: A Secret History by Donna Tart; One Day by David Nicholls and Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Publishers fear that college-aged kids or recent graduates lack the time, money or inclination for recreational reading. Even if that were so, I’m sure nostalgic adults would buy these books as would teens, wondering about their future. I hope that The Marriage Plot will lead to more New Adult novels.

Disclosure: I bought The Marriage Plot at Gulf of Maine Books without compensation. 

Happy Five: January marked my fifth anniversary of blogging.  Time flies!
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