They can be any genre really, but they need to be easy to read. Summer reads are just different--it's all about the vibe.
24 articles from news sites, magazines, and blogs were used to find which books are going to be talked about most this summer. Well over 200 books were mentioned. The best of the best are divided into 3 tiers, based on how many recommendations they garnered.
Looking for more great summer reads? Check out last year's picks here.
The Best
Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home, she's built the perfect life. But beneath this facȧde, Ava's world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn't been used in years, and her toddler's tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business, someone who’d never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava.
Tags: Thriller
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. She's even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the dangerous thrill Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits. This new life she asked for just got a lot more complicated, and Feyi must begin her search for real answers.
Tags: LGBTQ+, Psychological Fiction
The only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters' trip away-with visions of a small town transformation for Nora who she's convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. There, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they've met many times and it's never been cute. If Nora knows she's not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he's nobody's hero, but as they are thrown together again and again-what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they've written about themselves. Available to download: eBook | Audio
Tags: Contemporary Romance
Very Good
The Kellys are messy, loud, loving Australians. The Lees are sophisticated, aloof, buttoned-up Americans. They have nothing in common…except for the fact that their daughters are married. When a nearby volcano erupts during their short vacation to a remote tropical island off the coast of Queensland, the two families find themselves stranded together for six weeks.
Tags: LGBTQ+, Contemporary Romance
One night in New York City’s Chinatown, a woman is at a work reunion dinner with former colleagues when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her way back, she runs into a former boyfriend. And then another. And . . . another. Nothing is quite what it seems as the city becomes awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past. Memories of the past swirl and converge in ways both comic and eerie, as Lola is forced to decide if she will surrender herself to the conspiring of one very contemporary cult.
One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders's skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them.
Tags: Science Fiction
Things are looking up for Mr. and Mrs. Cho. Their dream of franchising their Korean plate lunch restaurants across Hawaiʻi seems within reach after a visit from Guy Fieri boosts the profile of Cho’s Delicatessen. Their daughter, Grace, is busy finishing her senior year of college and working for her parents, while her older brother, Jacob, just moved to Seoul to teach English. But when a viral video shows Jacob trying—and failing—to cross the Korean demilitarized zone, nothing can protect the family from suspicion and the restaurant from waning sales.
Tags: Humor, Magical Realism
Fresh off a bad breakup with a longtime boyfriend, Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton is desperately seeking a second act. When she's named the new general manager of the Hotel Nantucket, a once Gilded Age gem turned abandoned eyesore, she hopes that her local expertise and charismatic staff can win the favor of their new London billionaire owner, Xavier Darling, as well as that of Shelly Carpenter, the wildly popular Instagram tastemaker who can help put them back on the map. Available to download: eBook | Audio.
Tags: Haunted Hotel, Fiction
The Oppenheimer triplets have been reared with every advantage: wealth, education, and the determined attention of at least one of their parents. But neither Harrison (the smart one), Lewyn (the weird one) nor Sally (the girl) suspects the devastating event that first set their family in motion, or understands how fully it has already formed them. Now, on the verge of their departure for college and desperate to escape one another at last, the triplets are forced to contend with an unexpected complication: a fourth Oppenheimer sibling, formerly a leftover embryo from their own long ago in vitro genesis, has just been born.
Tags: Dysfunctional Families, Fiction
After seventeen-year-olds Chole and Shara, Chole's rival for valedictorian, kiss, Shara vanishes leaving Chole and two boys, who are also enamored with Shara, to follow the trail of clues she left behind, but during the search, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to Shara and her small Alabama town than she thought. Available to download: eBook
Tags: Young Adult, LGBTQ+, Missing Persons
In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test.
Tags: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror
Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning player named Nicki Chan. At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her Grand Slam record.
Tags: Sports Fiction
When Katy's mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn't just Katy's mom, but her best friend and first phone call. To make matters worse, the mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone. But as soon as she steps foot on the beautiful Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother's spirit. Available to download: eBooks | Audio
Tags: Mothers and Daughters, Italy
Right after the sudden death of her mother--her first and most devoted fan--and just before the launch of her high-stakes sophomore album, Greta James falls apart on stage. The footage quickly goes viral and she stops playing, her career suddenly in jeopardy--the kind of jeopardy her father, Conrad, has always predicted. Months later, Greta--still heartbroken and very much adrift--reluctantly agrees to accompany Conrad on the Alaskan cruise her parents had booked to celebrate their fortieth anniversary. Available to download: eBook | Audio
Tags: Travel Fiction
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. When Alice wakes up the next morning somehow back in 1996, it isn't her 16-year-old body that is the biggest shock, or the possibility of romance with her adolescent crush, it's her dad: the vital, charming, 49-year-old version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, is there anything that she should do differently this time around? Available to download: eBook | Audio
Tags: Time-Travel Fiction
When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah's mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family's beach house in Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market. Available to download: eBook | Audio
Tags: Families
Good
A debut novel that centers on a young black British woman who has no interest in love and unexpectedly finds herself caught up in a fake relationship with the man she warned her girls about.
Tags: Contemporary Romance
From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin's quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood.
Tags: Campus Fiction
This is Viola Davis' story, in her own words, and spans her incredible, inspiring life, from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present day. Hers is a story of overcoming–a true hero's journey. Available to download: eBook | Audio
Tags: Autobiographies
When the man Lily once loved walks back into her life with a motley crew of his friends ready to hit the trails, the usually self-reliant cowgirl is thrown. Finding themselves alone in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they trust her father’s maps-and each other-enough to risk their lives and hearts for the adventure of a lifetime. Available to download: eBook | Audio.
Tags: Romance, Treasure Hunting
The best-selling author offers a new collection of satirical and humorous essays that chronicle his own life and ordinary moments that turn beautifully absurd, including how he coped with the pandemic, his thoughts on becoming an orphan in his seventh decade, and the battle-scared America he discovered when he resumed touring. Available to download: eBook | Audio
Told in alternating timelines and reminiscent of Dominicana, My Brilliant Friend, and Normal People, The Girls in Queens explores a lifelong friendship, the complications of sexual abuse allegations within communities of color, the furious loyalty of young women, and the danger of forgetting that sometimes monsters hide in plain sight.
Tags: Psychological Fiction
April Coutts-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford. By the end of the second term, April was dead. A decade later, as Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.
Tags: Mystery
