The Lit List's summer reading guide

Memorial Day Weekend has come and gone, and in the U.S. that means summer has officially begun. It’s been warm and humid in Washington, D.C. for a few weeks now, and soon I’ll be cursing summer heat and praying for fall temperatures.

But while I’m still naive, I’m compiling a list of books that either feel like summer to me or feel like good books to read during the summer. There’s no rhyme or reason to my choices, and much of this is just an uncreative, literal interpretation of summer; if the title mentions water or summer, it counts!

Some logistics and disclaimers:

1. I’ll recommend a book if I rated it around 3 stars or higher; even if a book isn’t my favorite, it might be yours, and there is still value in reading non-favorites. Better conversation!

2. I’ve tried to throw in something for everyone, and some of these books I’ve borrowed from my 2022 summer reading list because I stand by them.

3. You can find links to my previous reviews on Instagram, Substack, Goodreads, etc. in the footnotes (if you’re reading this in the Substack app, clicking on the superscripts will bring footnotes up in-text; in email, you probably want to just wait until you get to the bottom or you’ll have to keep scrolling back up)

I know there are a thousand summer reading guides out there from smart people with thoughtful recommendations (like

Michelle Martin

over at

Literary Leanings

, who just released a great summer reading guide as well. I always trust Michelle’s recommendations). No one asked me to contribute to that. But I love lists! That’s the name of this silly little newsletter!

literary fiction

Lit fic is not my most-read genre, but it is my most beloved. While I’m often tempted to go for “easier” books in the summer that are perhaps more plot-heavy or faster-paced, lit fic is perfect for the coming months because it embodies what summer is to me: languid.

• The Guest by Emma Cline¹ — This is an unsurprising and obvious pick, but the setting in the Hamptons and an unsettling undercurrent that made The Guest the It Girl summer novel of 2023 are keeping it on my list for summer 2024. So many authors are trying to capitalize on the popularity of the unreliable female narrator as an aesthetic, but Cline is one of the few who really nails it in a way that doesn’t feel stale or formulaic. I think there’s something powerful about how quiet this book is, what it says about wealth and deception and miscommunication in between its words. I was stressed nearly the whole time, and even that speaks loudly. Everything about it is intentional, including the answers and explanations we never get.

• The Country Life by Rachel Cusk² — This Jane Austen–esque parody is funny, clever, and sometimes dark. The hapless, inexperienced narrator moves to the British countryside to nanny for the disabled teenage son of a wealthy, dysfunctional family. It lets you in on the joke and allows you to make fun of it. And crucially, it takes place in the summer, which you can’t miss with the countless references to the heat and one awful sunburn scene. I’d be remiss not to mention, though, it carries a very hefty content warning for ableist language. While I interpreted its inclusion as a way to showcase how horrid the characters are, and I hope these are not the actual views of the author (I haven’t read any Cusk otherwise), it might be offensive to some and I’d encourage you to look up the trigger warnings.

• The Glow by Jessie Gaynor³ — in The Glow, readers see the world of white woman spirituality through the eyes of a young woman trying to save her career as a publicist by taking over PR for an all-white-wearing, raw-vegan-disordered-eating, faux-spiritual retreat leader who is essentially scamming her desparate followers. A satire poking fun at self-care, wellness, and culturally appropriated spirituality might sound a little too of-a-moment to really appreciate, especially with a wealth of novels aiming for the same message, but Gaynor scratches an itch with her cast of unlikeable characters. You’ll enjoy this cultural critique if you’ve spent any amount of time being bombarded on TikTok with influencers curating their beauty and lifestyle content to make viewers feel a dissatisfaction they’ve been conned into believing can only be fixed by spending money.

• Summer by Ali Smith⁴ — it’s a cop out to include a book literally titled Summer on a summer reading list, but I think that was exactly Smith’s point with her seasonal quartet. Each of the novels feels perfect for its eponymous season. It might not have been my favorite novel, but this one is for my pals just looking for vibes.

• Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados⁵ — it’s the summer of 2013, and our narrator, 21-year-old Isa, has moved to New York City with her best friend, hoping to create adult lives full of glamour and intrigue. They are broke and naive in that specific way 21-year-olds are, which is to say it’s easy to both romanticize and be exhausted by the girls’ exploits and adventures. They are pretentious and they are figuring out how to exist, and at that age, it’s always better to be too much than not enough. I too was 21 in the summer of 2013, though living a far less interesting life, and Happy Hour’s journal entry play-by-play filled me with a nostalgia that’s more so relief that the past is the past.

romance

• Hot Summer by Elle Everhart⁶ — a sapphic, Love Island-inspired romance. If you’re also the target audience for this, that’s probably all I need to say to convince you. I really felt like I was watching Love Island, except the real thing isn’t queer enough. While the new season of Love Island starts June 3 (and us U.S. viewers will painstakingly wait for episodes to be slowly released), Hot Summer won’t be published until June 25.

• You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi — this book is certainly not your classic contemporary romance, but if you’ve missed the hype so far, you must read it in the summer. It follows Feyi, who is exploring the dating world as she works through grief. Because she is a cool hottie, she snags a man who invites her to the Caribbean. Going on vacation with a new fling is chaotic enough, but what does Feyi do? Fall in love with her fling’s father, of course! It’s messy messy messy, but who amongst us doesn’t love other people’s drama?

general fiction

• Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis⁷ — regular readers/followers are surely tired of me recommending this book by now, but it hits all my criteria for a summer read: plot-heavy, light romance, heavy friendship, and secrets and twists. Cantoras is a moving tale of found family and the power of love in all its forms. That sounds incredibly cheesy, but that’s all the more reason to read it poolside to me.

• A Perfect Vintage by Chelsea Fagan⁸ — it is every type A lonely girl’s dream to find a high-profile career that whisks you off to glamorous European locations, and that is exactly what narrator Lea’s life looks like. Her job is one I’m still not even sure exists: she is a consultant, but one who advises families who are turning their French country estates into boutique hotels. Sure! Lea is set to spend a lovely summer in France — while working, because girlbosses don’t sleep — with her best friend and best friend’s daughter, but of course, romance blooms. Lea falls for a much-younger hottie (also every type A lonely girl’s dream), her best friend falls for his dad, and there’s no way it isn’t going to be messy. This might technically be a romance, but the many different characters and the setting made me put it into this category instead.

dystopian heebie-jeebies

• Eleutheria by Allegra Hyde — Eleutheria takes place mostly in the Bahamas, which automatically qualifies it for a summer reading list, but it’s also unique climate fiction with one of those frustratingly naïve narrators we hate to love but find ourselves rooting for anyway. Because of that, some aspects of this can feel a little like YA. There’s a good message about history repeating itself and our willful ignorance of warning signs, especially when it comes to colonialism, capitalism, and ecological destruction. It reminds readers of the bigger picture that sustainability is equality, though I think that two years later, we might want that message to be bigger and louder than Eleutheria delivers. It’s also cult-y, if that’s what will convince you. Cults feel so summery to me, and I have nothing to back that up.

• The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh — Three sisters, raised in isolation by their oppressive, abusive father to believe that the outside world is uninhabitable and all men are dangerous, are forced to think independently for the first time after he disappears just before three men happen to wash ashore. Goodreads calls this a “feminist dystopic revenge fantasy,” which I can’t say is inaccurate. Its prose is sparse, revealing very little, which lends itself to an increasingly disturbing feel. While certainly not a light-hearted beach read, The Water Cure is one you can fly through.
  
  I’d also include Mackintosh’s Cursed Bread⁹ as a summer book. Her sparse, lyrical writing style is reflected here too, but it’s a departure from her previous two books (the other being Blue Ticket, also feminist dystopic rage) and delves into historical fiction of sorts. I think it’s been divisive, with a fairly low rating on Goodreads, but I wonder how much of that is because of expectations. It’s not a thriller and doesn’t satisfyingly wrap up as such. It’s strictly literary, and if that is not your thing, Mackintosh’s writing will annoy the hell out of you. But the history is fascinating! That’s why I wrote an entire newsletter on it.

• The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier — if you were shaken up by the recent extreme turbulence event on a Singapore Airlines flight, maybe this book isn’t for you. It’s about a similar weather event (which, by the way, is going to become the norm thanks to climate change), where passengers on a flight from Paris to New York find themselves split into two separate selves with two separate lives after going through a patch of terrifying, inexplicable turbulence. This book make me think a lot, and if you’re going to have an existential crisis about string theory anywhere, it might as well be on the beach.

• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell¹⁰ — I had to throw a nonfiction on here because I think it’s really underrated in the summer, when it feels most satisfying to spend hours really diving into a topic. Maybe your family vacation is turning into a nightmare? Pick up the 800-page incredibly niche nonfiction book! But really, Cultish isn’t niche or dense. It’s one of the more accessible nonfiction books I’ve read in recent years, and the intersection of cults and linguistics is more universal than you’d think. Plus, as I said, cults feel summery to me! Montell has a new book out, The Age of Magical Overthinking, which I’m excited to read and hoping to get to this summer.

• Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman — I’m not a big thriller girl, so you can either take or leave this recommendation if you are. This one is about a newly married couple honeymooning in Bora Bora who finds ~something in the water~ while scuba diving. Their decisions from that point on set off a chain of events that quickly turns sinister but had me hooked. Page turners are so excellent for the summer!

otherworldly

For anyone who relates to Winona Ryder’s “I myself am strange and unusual” line in Beetlejuice. (An aside: How do we feel about the upcoming movie remake)

• Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield¹¹ — One day I’ll stop raving about this book. It isn’t for everyone and I’ve seen plenty of mixed reviews, but I think your experience with this novel depends on your expectations (like Cursed Bread). The premise of the narrator’s wife embarking on a deep sea science mission and coming back traumatized beyond repair is so intriguing that it’s only natural you’ll want answers, but you won’t find any in the pages. Our Wives Under the Sea is ultimately a love story, not a sci-fi thriller, but I did truly love the horror aspect of it too. If you’re going to dabble in literary sci-fi love stories about the ocean, you might as well do it by the ocean.

• The Pisces by Melissa Broder — I’m not sure how you’d categorize The Pisces, but it really is for the Pisces girlies. The main character, Lucy, is a quintessential Broder narrator, a sad white girl of questionable morals, eager for love and exhausting everyone around her — us as readers included — in the process of finding it. Lucy, who has been aimlessly writing a dissertation for over a decade when her long-term relationship ends, moves to Venice Beach to housesit for her sister for the summer and falls in love slash lust with a swimmer who turns out to be a merman. This is a weird love story, sure, but it isn’t about love in any of the ways readers expect, or even want. What we do want, though, is a book for each astrological sign (or maybe that’s just me being a Sagittarius).

• The Lightness by Emily Temple¹² — This book is about a slightly ominous Buddhist summer camp for teenage girls at the age when they’re discovering their power and agency and carving out places for themselves in a world not built for them. There’s a hint of fear throughout this novel, and though it leans toward the vaguely supernatural, it also reflects the very real progression of girlhood. To be a teenage girl is to be feared and controlled and loved and projected upon all at once. It’s not fast-paced, but it’s eerie and atmospheric enough with a cult-ish vibe that makes you want to keep turning the page to see what happens.

for the sad girls

• Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion¹³ — If “languid” is my favorite word to describe summer, ennui goes hand-in-hand with it. That’s what Didion portrays in Play It As It Lays, and I can only imagine how powerful this book must have felt to anyone who experienced the 1960s this way. This novel is cutting because it’s heavy and disturbing, which to me feels like classic Joan Didion, but what I think is most interesting about reading this through a modern lens is that the ennui of privileged people has translated across generations. This writing itself felt challenging to me at times, but anyone who survived school-mandated summer reading will be up for it.

• Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann — Valley of the Dolls reminds me of Play It As It Lays in some ways. Both capture the ennui (I promise I’m done using that word) that rich white people in the mid-20th century felt but couldn’t ever name, the ability to self-destruct knowing there would be a safety net. In this novel from the 60s, three young women trying to make it in New York become best friends and also dependent on pills (or dolls, as they call them). This book is bleak, but it’s a classic for a reason. And once you finish it, you get to watch the movie starring Sharon Tate.

• Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter¹⁴ — for the modern sad white girl, if the above two recs feel a little outdated to you. In Ripe, Cassie is trapped in a corporate hellscape, finally hitting her breaking point when her deranged start-up CEO demands she engage in illegal work and she accidentally gets pregnant. She also has a miniature black hole, a la personal pan pizza, trailing her like a puppy and pulling her closer as she grows more depressed. The metaphors are a bit obvious, I know, but they aren’t wrong and they nurture the tension underscoring Cassie’s narrative. I appreciated Ripe’s portrayal of toxic tech culture and Silicon Valley capitalism against a rapidly gentrifying, often bleak San Francisco. The juxtaposition gets Cassie almost to the point of accountability and enlightenment, and that sets this book apart in the sad girl lit genre — many of Cassie’s literary counterparts live in much more delusion.

for readers who despise the light beach read and want to something to chew on instead

• Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah — This book has absolutely nothing to do with the season, nor is it a light read, but I do think everyone should read it and take their time with it — something best done in the summer. It’ll give you a lot to think about, from the private prison complex to our love of exploitation as entertainment. The book is about incarcerated people who are forced to fight to the death in a reality show competition. The main characters are two women close to earning their freedom, meaning they have survived all of their gladiator-style battles thus far. Naturally, the capitalistic imperial powers that be lay obstacles in front of them to protect their interests, which never involved the prisoners. It’s quite propulsive, and there’s a queer love story woven throughout. Ignore the Read With Jenna sticker on the front; I admit I judge books that have been branded by celebrity book clubs (especially hers), but this one is deserving of the hype.

• The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty¹⁵ — Another book I haven’t shut up about since reading. This one was a very sensory experience for me, which is why it feels like summer to me but maybe won’t to others. Like Chain-Gang All-Stars, The Rabbit Hutch is a book you want to sit with and digest. It’s told almost in little vignettes, weaving together the lives of residents in an affordable housing complex, set in fictional Vacca Vale, Indiana. While there is no specific narrator and multiple characters get their time in dedicated pages, one stands out. Ethereal, intelligent Blandine, now aged out of foster care, and the common thread between all other characters. This is a sad novel in the way that coming to terms with humanity can’t be done without heartbreak.

• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World by Steve Brusatte — I know, I should stop talking about dinosaurs as much as I should shut up about black holes. But I read the majority of this book on the beach last year, and it was a great environment for it. If you want a pop science book that feels more like a narrative and gives you a bit more to think about than you’d expect from a book about the timeline of dinosaurs’ existence, just give it a chance! There are many lessons for humans to learn from mass extinction events. And if you’re interested in what came after dinosaurs, I’d also recommend The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by the same author.

Please, share your summer book recommendations! I’m still struggling to read at any sort of reasonable pace lately, so I’m hoping one of you can inspire me. I’d particularly love some summer-y recommendations in the translated lit (

Martha

’s forte, if you want translated recs, and you should!) or “diverse” books space, because it is very obvious that a white girl compiled this list and I would like to do better and be less boring!

1. So sorry to my British pals for the heinous U.K. cover of The Guest that makes this look like an airport thriller, especially when it’s usually the U.S. version that’s so lackluster. Also, you can read my Goodreads review here.

2. You can read my Instagram review of The Country Life here.

3. You can read my Instagram review of The Glow here and my Goodreads review here.

4. You can read my Instagram post inspired by Summer and detailing what summer feels like to me as a sensory experience here. I also made one for fall, winter, and spring. These were some of the most fun posts to make!

5. My thoughts about Happy Hour are on Instagram here.

6. You can read my Goodreads review of Hot Summer here.

7. My quick Cantoras thoughts are on Instagram here. Apologies to everyone who is so, so tired of me including this book on every list I make.

8. I read this book while on vacation at a fancy resort in Turks and Caicos that I certainly did not belong at, so I’d recommend this one with a backdrop.

9. I did an installment of internet rabbit holes on Cursed Bread here and a “sensory review” (idk what to call these) on Instagram.

10. My Instagram thoughts on Cultish are here.

11. My somewhat-review of Our Wives Under the Sea is on Instagram. I also did a deep dive into random deep sea tidbits here on Substack as part of my internet rabbit holes series.

12. You can read my (quite old) thoughts on The Lightness on Instagram here.

13. My Instagram thoughts on Play It As It Lays are here.

14. I have a Substack post on Ripe, though be forewarned it’s in conjunction with my thoughts on Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and astrophysics. I also detailed my personal and picky qualms with the book on Goodreads.

15. I did one of my “sensory reviews” for The Rabbit Hutch, which you can find on Instagram.