Summer Reading 2018: Taking Back My TBR!
It’s that time again! Summer, when we all make plans to read ALL THE BOOKS. I’m doing the same thing, but I’m also doing something a little differently (for me) this year. As much as I love receiving advanced copies of books from publishers (and one of the books is one of those) and digital review copies of books, I can also get very bogged down with all of the things that I “have” to read. So this summer I’m coming up with a list of books I want to read. And that’s the only requirement. Yes, I will still be reading and reviewing my publisher copies, but I want to make a lot more time for books I want to read, whether they’re backlist, new, and in between. Today I’m sharing 15 books I’ve been wanting to read, and I will be putting them first as much as possible this summer! The rest of the books I read will be a combination of planned books and last-minute picks! Tell me what books you’re excited to read this summer, and if you’ve read any on my list tell me what you thought!
(Be sure to check my Instagram account very soon for a giveaway I’m really excited about!)
This is our June Bucket List Book Club pick, along with the sequel, Us Against You
This is the second book in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series, and I’ve been wanting to re-read it all year! In this sequel, Anne becomes a schoolteacher, has more adventures at Green Gables, and continues her friendship with Gilbert Blythe. I love this series so much, and if anyone else is looking for a warm, funny, surprisingly poignant series, I would love for you to read along with me!
I know some people consider themselves Anne girls, and some people consider themselves Emily girls. I’ve never read Emily of New Moon, also my L.M. Montgomery, and it’s been sitting on my shelf for almost a year. Emily is different from Anne, but I really trust Montgomery, so I’m excited to read about her adventures. Like Anne, Emily is an orphan, and she goes to live with relatives at New Moon Farm. While her relatives aren’t exactly kind and welcoming, she makes friends and might start to finally feel at home.
Another book I’ve wanted to read for quite awhile! Now that it’s being made into a movie (out August 15), I definitely want to read it this summer so that I can see it. (Book before movie, people, book before movie.) Rachel Chu and her boyfriend Nick Young live in New York. When Rachel agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with Nick and his family, she’s not expecting for his home to basically be a palace and to realize that his family is rich and famous. Rachel has to navigate her new view of Nick, in addition to his relatives and other people who might not have her best interests at heart. This is the first in a trilogy, and seems like a fantastic option if you like family sagas, which I do!
The Ensemble was released on May 15, and when I heard Annie B. Jones talk about it on her podcast (From the Front Porch), I immediately added it to my must read list. It’s not something I would usually go for (except for that gorgeous cover), but she made it sound so good that I already have it in from my library holds! It’s the story of four friends who all play classical music together in their group, the Van Ness Quartet. Seems benign, but as a group they go through failures and successes, ups and downs, and all the hard things that friendships can go through. It is getting wonderful reviews, and I love finding books by debut authors!
Lilac Girls has been on my TBR forever, and when Katie (at Katie Lady Reads) sent it to me and said it was her favorite book of the year so far, I knew I needed to finally get it read! It takes place during WWII when the Nazis invade Poland and then turn to France. This particular WWII story is told through the eyes of three women: New Yorker Caroline, Polish Kasia, and German Herta. I really love how war stories about women are becoming more prevalent-they played a huge role and often went unnoticed and unthanked. I am so ready to lose myself in this story and find out what happens to these three women.
This book was my Book of the Month selection for May-when I saw that Taylor Jenkins Reid recommended it (another one of my favorite authors), I added it to my box immediately. It’s part romance, part drama, and deals with how a person might react when put into an impossible situation, and I am always here for that. Margaret Jacobsen has a new fiance, a great job, and a perfect life. When an accident lands her in the hospital at the beginning of the novel, she has to deal with her whole world falling apart, and figure out if what has been important to her still is, and if she still has the ability to let people in.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the free copy of this book! I have read every one of Mary Kay Andrews’ books, and this one looks just as good as the rest, maybe even better. Her books feel like summer to me, so this one is on my must-read summer list as well. Like so many of the books I love, this is about a group of women who were best friends and kept all each other’s secrets. Fast forward decades later, and only one is still alive. Josephine hires an attorney, Brooke Trappnell, to find the descendants of her friends so that she can make amends . . . and maybe solve a murder.
I feel like I’m the last person to read this book, and I need to correct that. Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’ is a YA novel about a high school girl, Willowdean, whose former beauty pageant mom nicknames her Dumplin’. This is a coming of age novel about how a non-stick-figure girl shows everyone that size doesn’t matter. And she does it by entering the Miss Teen Bluebonnet Pageant. I am ALL IN for a book that shows teens (and let’s be honest, adults) that a body is just that, a body, and it’s what in your heart and mind that really counts. We could use a lot more of this type of story. (And it takes place in Texas. Which just makes it even better.)
Puddin’ is the sequel to Dumplin’ and I intend to read them both this summer! I believe this is more of a companion novel and follows a few side characters from Dumplin’, but the sentiment is the same. This book follows Millie Michalchuk (a fat camp graduate) and Callie Reyes (the popular and pretty dance team captain) and their unlikely friendship. I honestly can’t wait to read this one. (And again, it’s in Texas!)
A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses)
This is a novella in the Court of Thorns and Roses series, and while I’m a little wary (I loved the first two books in the original trilogy and felt let down by the third), I still can’t wait to go back to the Night Court and see what Feyre and Rhysand are up to. They are rebuilding from the devastating events of the last novel, and are about to celebrate the Winter Solstice. But of course, the dark clouds never really go away, and Feyre will have to navigate those while learning how to be the High Lady of the Night Court. I believe this novella is meant to be a bridge between the original trilogy and the next, so I’m interested to see how Sarah Maas connects them.
Let’s be honest. Regardless of your political affiliation (or lack of affiliation, as a lot of find ourselves these days), the political world can be fascinating. Cutthroat, fast-paced, and never the same from one day to the next. But what about the spouses? I love stories about the other side of big things, and Campaign Widows is just that: the story of a group of women in Washington, D.C., who become “widows” when their husbands go on the campaign trail. This seems gossipy, juice, and based in just enough fact to make me wonder how much of it is actually true.
Son of the Dawn (Ghosts of the Shadow Market Book 1)
Are you a Cassandra Clare fan? If you’re not, what are you even doing with your life?? Just kidding! Kind of. If you like fantasy, please, please go read her books. All of them. Her Shadowhunters series (The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and The Dark Artifices) are some of my favorites, and unlike other authors, her books truly get better with each new one. Ghosts of the Shadow Market are a series of short stories about the characters from those series and are meant to give more insight to them and what they’ve been up to. (And I think they’re meant to tide us over until her next book comes out!) These look quick and short, and I can’t wait to read them all.
So this is not a book I would normally pick up. It’s about a married couple who, having fallen into all the trappings of a traditional, suburban life, decide to make theirs an open marriage for six months as an experiment. At first glance, this is not my type of book. But when Knox McCoy greenlit it as a favorite book on The Popcast, I changed my mind. On the surface, yes, this is a book about an open marriage. But what it really seems to be about is marriage, relationships, and how the people in that relationship change when pressure is applied. And as I’m sure you can tell from a lot of this list, I do love books about what happens to regular people when put into extraordinary circumstances.
This is such a fitting book to end my summer TBR list with. Y’all, I am ready for school the be out and to not have to sign up for 10,000 things on 5,000 SignUpGeniuses. (But I love SignUpGenius. Don’t mistake end of year burnout for hatred of the SignUpGenius.) This book is what it looks like: a book about the different types of moms, how they try to contribute to their children’s classrooms, and how hilarious it can be when trying to get all of these moms to work together and agree. Now that it’s summer, I’m definitely ready to laugh about it. It seems like a lighter, bookish version of the movie Bad Moms, and I can’t wait!