Ever heard of the 100-page rule? This rule should be implemented when reading any book that hasn’t captured your attention and imagination in the first 100 pages. I recently broke this rule when determined to read a novel by a ‘classic’ writer, I slogged my way through all 1000+ pages of Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. Despite being thoroughly bored, I just kept thinking that a novel about a famous execution would actually get better if I just kept on reading. Wrong!
Check out these books and their synopsis; you’re sure to find one to keep you riveted at the pool or on the sand.
So, having finally finished this non-interesting book, I decided to ask my fellow book club readers for Summer books to read at the beach.
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer, is about female friendship. The book centers on Greer Kadetsky, a young woman who is coming of age and finding inspiration in a feminist icon, Faith Frank. Faith evolves throughout the novel from an abstract celebrity, to boss, confident, and challenger who pushes Greer to confront reality.
The Hottest Summer Beach Reads
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin: It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders; Recently described as “the oddest book I enjoyed reading,” Lincoln in the Bardo centers, on President Lincoln, already tormented by the knowledge that he’s responsible for the deaths of thousands of young men on the battlefields of the Civil War, loses his beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, to typhoid. The plot begins after Willie is laid to rest in a cemetery near the White House, where, invisible to the living, ghosts linger, unwilling to relinquish this world for the next. Their bantering conversation, much of it concerned with earthly — and earthy – pleasures, counterbalances Lincoln’s abject sorrow.
The Bride Test, by Helen Hoang: a man who doesn’t think he’s capable of having feelings. He’s still unconvinced when his family tries to assure him that his autism makes him process emotions differently, and his mom sets out to find him the perfect bride in Vietnam.
I’ll Never Tell by Katherine McKenzie: After their parents’ sudden deaths, five siblings reunite to decide what to do with their family’s property. But before they can, they have to figure out what happened to their fellow camper Amanda, who was found bludgeoned to death in a rowboat 20 years ago.
City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert. By the author of Eat, Pray, Love, this new tale is about the past: Vivian, a now-95-year-old woman, finally shares her love story from the 1940s.
Every Door, by Riley Sager: When Jules Larsen takes a new job as an apartment sitter, she has no clue that she’ll eventually try to solve the disappearance of her coworker. That, combined with the apartment building’s troubling past, makes it a book that will surprise (and yes, probably terrify) you.
The Turn of the Key, by Ruth Ware: Rowan Caine fibbed a bit to become a highly-paid live-in nanny. But the financial perks of the job come with unforeseen consequences, like being accused of murder. As she awaits trial, she wonders who is actually responsible for a child’s death.
Speaking of Summer, by Kalisha Buckhanon: It might take a few chapters before settling into Speaking of Summer, but this mysterious novel is well worth the wait. The core of the book revolves around a woman named Autumn who is consumed with searching for her missing twin sister Summer.
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides psychotherapist Theo Faber’s obsession with his mute patient, Alicia Berenson. Alicia was committed into a mental health facility after being charged with killing her husband.
