Yes, we’ve got summer reads covered here at CGD, we’ve spent enough time daydreaming about lying poolside with a kindle and a cosmopolitan. So, if you’re looking for something that will absolutely hook you and be the perfect companion for beach holidays and poolside dreaming, read on.
#1 Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.
This book was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Humour. It revolves around an agoraphobic mother who goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica, and although it doesn’t sound like a funny subject, this book is bursting with laugh out loud humour, wit and satire. Where did Bernadette go after all? Her daughter’s determined to find her, and she’s using all the tools of modern life to help her. This book is perfect if you’re looking for something light-hearted enough not to put a dampener on your holiday but engaging enough to keep you turning the pages!
#2 The Vacationers by Emma Straub
The Vacationers follows the Post family’s two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends. The cheerful sun offers up an escape from any home tensions and stresses but also brings out painful secrets, childhood rivalries and humiliations. This book is a great examination of family bonds, friendships and the complication of forming relationships in a selfish society. It’s a perfect poolside read, as long as your own holiday doesn’t end up the same way.
#3 Girls In White Dresses by Jennifer Close
For Isabella, Mary and Lauren every day is another day that someone they know is getting married. Amid the days of celebration, gestures of love and endless glasses of champagne these girls have to work out their lives and figure out the path of early adulthood amongst bad jobs, sleazy guys and friendships. This book is startlingly accurate, funny and is a great read for the approaching wedding season!
#4 Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
If you’ve avoided the hype of Gone Girl, now is a perfect time to pick it up. This dark and dramatic book will have you furiously turning the pages to find out exactly what happened to Amy and why Nick seems so guilty. The less we say the better with this book, especially as it’s now a major movie, but it’s a perfect book to bring to the beach and devour under the sun.
#5 Love May Fail by Matthew Quick
This novel by the Silver Linings Playbook author has been picked up by Sony to be turned into a film. It follows Portia Kane, who escapes her ritzy Florida life and her cheating husband and heads for South Jersey, the place of her youth. She decides to set off on a quest to save the one man who always believed in her, her high school English teacher. A perfect read for evenings by the pool, and you can watch it play out on the big screen next year!
#6 How To Start A Fire by Lisa Lutz
How to Start a Fire tells the story of three friendships that span over 25 years. They meet in college but grow into an adulthood that’s marred by secrets and a single night that changed them all. A delicious and fabulously written read about female friendships, wild adventures, unspoken jealousies and reconnecting through the haze of years.
Are you looking forward to settling down with one of these great beach reads? I’m a traditional book kind of girl who’s been converted to a kindle in recent years, so I’m downloading these as we speak. I love an excuse to settle down and read, now if the sun would just come out it’d be perfect!