The Fourth of July is behind us, and all we have left to do now is beach it every weekend until Labor Day. But to do that successfully, you’ll need something that’s almost as important as SPF: a good book. Here are a few of my favorite beach reads that I’ve been devouring this summer.
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City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
I had been stuck in a nonfiction bubble for a long time, but Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest novel City of Girls pulled me right out of that and back into the world of fiction. I really enjoyed this book, especially because I read Sweetbitter right after it and realized that City of Girls was a similar story, but much more nuanced. The characters are dynamic, the story kept me turning the pages, and I read the last page with sadness that it was over. A great summer read!
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The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Sooooo this isn’t necessarily a book for those looking for “fun in the sun,” but I always read The Bell Jar in the summer, maybe because the first line is “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” Really light-hearted stuff, huh? Anyway, The Bell Jar is a classic, and if you’re looking for an easier read with a little more substance, this is a good bet.
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Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you probably know that Big Little Lies is one of the biggest TV shows on the air right now (made even bigger by the addition of Queen Meryl Streep). The book is set in Australia, but the change of scenery from the land down under to the golden coast of California in the show loses nothing when it comes to scandal, drama, and Laura Dern losing it every five minutes.
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The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
The Talented Mr. Ripley is kind of like a cross between Dexter and Roman Holiday, set in Italy against a backdrop of murder. Again, you’ve probably seen or at least heard of the movie, with Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow in all of their late-90s glory. You kind of start to wonder how many near-misses Tom Ripley will have (and this series goes on for another four books!), but his absolute sociopathy and humorous-but-terrifying inner monologue make this a book you won’t be able to put down.
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Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
I saw the movie first, and I thought it was fun, if not frivolous and OTT. If you can believe it, reading Crazy Rich Asians is even more decadent than seeing it. Kevin Kwan’s descriptions are so rich, and although the dialogue is painfully contrived, I actually learned quite a bit about Chinese culture, which I wasn’t expecting when I picked this up.
By Emma Lifvergren, Staff Writer
