Summer is in full swing and if you’re anything like me I’m sure you’re looking for thangs to do and books to read. I don’t know why but for some reason, I can only read light books in the summer, is that weird?!
Here are 10 Summer Reads that you should check out this summer…
Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan: I truly cannot recommend this book enough. If you like a second chance grown-up type of love then this one is for you. This book swept me away in its story and characters, I loved them, I loved their flaws and most of all I loved their fragile yet deep love. Quick synopsis, their love was supposed to last forever. But when life delivered blow after devastating blow, Yasmen and Josiah Wade found that love alone couldn’t solve or save everything. It couldn’t save their marriage.
Sunshine Nails by Mai Nguyen: Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have built a comfortable life for themselves in Toronto with their family nail salon. But when an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street, their world is rocked.
Complicating matters further, their landlord has jacked up the rent and it seems only a matter of time before they lose their business and everything they’ve built. They enlist the help of their daughter, Jessica, who has just returned home after a messy breakup and a messier firing. Together with their son, Dustin, and niece, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. Relationships are put to the test as the line between right and wrong gets blurred. Debbie and Phil must choose: do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon?
Where the Rhythm Takes You by Sarah Dass: This book is filled with island vibes and I love that. This is a romantic, mesmerizing novel of first love and second chances. Seventeen-year-old Reyna has spent most of her life at her family’s gorgeous seaside resort in Tobago, the Plumeria. But what once seemed like paradise is starting to feel more like purgatory. It’s been two years since Reyna’s mother passed away, two years since Aiden – her childhood best friend, first kiss, first love, first everything – left the island to pursue his music dreams. Reyna’s friends are all planning their futures and heading abroad. Even Daddy seems to want to move on, leaving her to try to keep the Plumeria running.
The God of Good Looks by Breanne Mc Ivor: One of my goals for my reading this year is to explore more Caribbean lit. As a Jamaican, well you know I’m truly biased and I’ve stuck to well Jamaican voices. But this book, let me tell you… It grabbed me in such a wonderful way. Written by a Trinidadian writer. I loved the entire story, the dialect that was inserted throughout, and the beautiful glimpse into a world I knew nothing about. This entertaining, transportive, and luminous debut novel follows a young Trinidadian woman finding her voice and a new kind of happy ending.
I listened to this as an audiobook courtesy of LibroFM and the audio was perfect!
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang: This book is trending and hyped for a reason. I read it in exactly two days because once I started I just couldn’t stop. Basically a story about white lies, dark humour, and deadly consequences.
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese labourers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? This book was so good!
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng: WOW! is all I have to say about this one. Celeste Ng never disappoints and this book is such a beautiful and captivating read. It is set in sort of a dystopian American future but Ng took some of the ugly issues and biases that are happening in the present and inserted them into the story. A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear. Just a phenomenal book!
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence.
I also listened to this as an audiobook courtesy of LibroFM and the audio was truly mesmerizing!
Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli: This book was beautiful, it was heartwrenching, immersive, and real. This book follows Eve who has just found her husband’s (Quentin) body after he took his own life. Told in three parts we see their lives from university to when she must say goodbye to his ashes. The pages are filled with grief but we also see her guilt, as she tries to process why her husband who was so in love with her and seemed quite happy would kill himself.
This book is a beautiful look inside grief. A young woman’s emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of new friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband.
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi: Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again. It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio, and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.
Waiting on Wendy by Tanzania Glover: Listen the cover attracted me and the story definitely lived up to the stunning cover. I am utterly in love with Wendy and Kellen and I didn’t want the story to end.
Kellen was a customer of Wendy’s. Working at her uncle’s diner while trying to get her life in order seemed like just the perfect thing. Kellen was persistent though and the banter and flirting between them was just a dream. Even though the lighthearted moments were everything there was a darkness that also surrounded this story, but not once did I lose hope. Just beautiful.
This book was recommended to me by one of the queens in the ‘This Black Girl Reads Book Club’ group on Facebook and I was not disappointed.
The Cuban Heiress by Chanel Cleeton: Another captivating and beautiful read by Chanel Cleeton. This book took me no time to read and I quickly became enthralled with all of the characters. In ‘The Cuban Heiress’ we follow Catherine Dohan and Elena Palacio who board the infamous SS Morro Castle on a cruise to Havana in 1934. It is the Great Depression and the passengers are looking to relax a little bit following a terrible year. But everyone is not who they seem to be. Elena is supposed to be dead, and she’s trying to keep a very low profile on the ship while seeking revenge. Catherine is also pretending, while she is among the elite, she also has tons of secrets. Both women and amazing heroines, as their stories develop and intertwine we see their motives and at times we don’t know who to trust. I enjoyed it all.
These are just a few books I recommend for your summer reading list but there are tons more. If you want to challenge yourself this summer to diversify your reading join the ‘TBGR Summer Reading Challenge’ where you can potentially win money!
Let me know in the comments what books I should add to my summer reading list.
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What do you think?