Best Summer Reads for Grownups (So Far)

When you think of summer reading, you usually imagine it happening by the side of the pool or under a beach umbrella. Sadly (but truly) most of mine this year has happened in the middle of the night as I struggle with insomnia. When I was pregnant with Anouk I feel like I did nothing but sleep, with this one, I feel like there is something new every night to keep me awake (heartburn is the latest and greatest).

So that's the bad news; the good news is that I've managed to get through a ton of books on my summer reading list even though summer is only just officially here. And if you can't get what you want (sleep glorious sleep) having a good book to keep you company is at least a comfort.

China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan: This is a sequel to two summers' ago Crazy Rich Asians, which was also a fave beach read of mine. There is something about reading about fabulous rich people and their drama and exploring a part of the world (Singapore/Hong Kong) that I usually don't read about that makes for a wonderful poolside (and I did actually read this one by the pool, over Memorial Day weekend) read. Just when you think things can't get more shocking (a character arrives by helicopter to crash a wedding) they do (poison!) Love it. NOTE: I was gifted a copy of this book by the publisher.

Disclaimer by Renee Knight: What The Girl on the Train was trying to be, a mystery with a twist I didn't see coming. Catherine receives a book with the "resemblance to real people and events" disclaimer crossed out, the story recounts a secret that she's been trying to keep hidden for 20 years. Plus this mysterious book has an ending in which the unnamed author gets a grisly revenge, so C. better find him before he finds her.

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll: You would think that Ani (formerly Tiffani) would be gracious and generous after pulling herself up to join Manhattan's elite but she isn't, she's still bitchy and hardscrabble and that's why I love her. She's also determined to set the record straight regarding her pask but will these old events threaten to pull her back down again? I loved this book -- it was so much smarter and funnier and ultimately tenderer than I expected.

The Bookseller: This one's a bit like that old movie Sliding Doors: Kitty, a career-driven spinster (by 1960s) standards, begins to have vivid dreams of a second life in which she's a wife and mother. As her dreams become more and more real, you begin to wonder: which is actually her real life? And which is the dream? I felt this one was bittersweet in the end as Kitty was forced to choose one path over the other -- but isn't that what basically happens in every life? You give some things up to embrace others.

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume: Three plane crashes in three months in one town during the 1950s sounds pretty impossible but it really happened and it's the basis for Judy Blume's supposed last novel, which connects families and friends in various ways across four decades. It wasn't a perfect or even perfectly satisfying book ultimately but reading it did feel like visiting an old friend. Plus Judy Blume's Summer Sisters is the epitome of summer reading, how could I not pick up this one too?

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North: I think the last book I read that so perfectly summed up a character without ever going into that character's head was The Great Gatsby and Sophie Stark is a little like that, as Sophie the avant garde filmmaker is basically her own creation and lives off of others' stories rather than her own. I never really sank into this book -- as I was reading I kept telling myself I would give up after the next chapter, but then kept picking it up again. Like Sophie herself, the book is unsettling.