Ten Books For Summer (Five I Recommend, Five I'm Looking Forward to!)

I'm a little late to the party on adding my annual summer list to the pile! But I hate to break with tradition, and I like having this list handy. So without further ado, here's this year's list of five books I can vouch for (and you can probably score easily from the library) and five new summer releases I'm planning to gobble up this summer. Plus, you can find links to previous summer lists here! 

Books I'd recommend for summer reading:
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This is the third year in a row that Jenkins Reid has landed on my summer reading list, and her latest is one of my favorites of the year. This fictional oral history of a 70s rock band is full of frothy LA scenes and such a fast read that's perfect for summer.
review here

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
This breakout debut romance novel was so sweet and wonderful - and, fair warning, very steamy! I loved her unique perspective and lovable characters. It looks as if her latest, The Bride Test, will be just as great - perfect bonus summer read.
review here

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
Speaking of steamy... This was the first book I read by the writing team of Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings (yes, C-Lo is their combined pen name) and it still stands as my favorite after having read Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating. This story of 'the boy next door' has much more heft, but I think that any of their works would probably be great summer fare. Their current release, The Unhoneymooners is getting darn good reviews, too.
review here

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Even if you've seen the movie (I mean, who HASN'T? If that's you, get on it!) this book will still seem fresh. It is a bit of a chunkster, with loads more detail than the film. Lush and fizzy fun detail that just screams indulgent summer read. This was on my to-read last summer and I'm glad I finally did!
review here

The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand
It ain't summer without an Elin novel to read, and I'd also recommend The Rumor and The Matchmaker (her other summer books I've read) which are all spectacularly immersive novels of summer on Nantucket. This was my favorite of these three, though - her first foray into a mystery was so much fun!
review here

Books I'm hoping to read this summer:
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
Let me preface this by saying that I read Eat, Pray, Love and found it INSUFFERABLE. Just. No. However, I have never read Gilbert's fiction and, given all the raves about this coming of age story set in 1940s New York City, I am intensely curious.

Recursion by Blake Crouch
This book is gonna be errrrrywhere this summer, as it's the follow up to Crouch's wildly successful Dark Matter (which ended up on my favorites of the year in 2016). This sounds fascinating, with a sci-fi twist on how our memories work. It seems to be receiving equally excellent reviews, and is already optioned for Netflix.

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center
Speaking of follow ups to wildly successful novels, this summer's novel by Center is a follow up to one of my favorite reads of last summer: How to Walk Away. A story about a female firefighter sounds especially intriguing and I'm looking forward to reviewing it for y'all, since I have an advance copy!

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
This romance novel that came out in April seems to have risen to the top as a favorite among the book community and I think it will make for a perfect beach read: two people sharing a room for rent that have opposite schedules, hijinks ensues. 

Summer of '69 by Elin Hilderbrand
Yes, Elin gets double billing because she is the queen of the summer novel (even though her winter books are some of my favorites). Last summer, I loved her take on a mystery novel and presume I'll love her take on historical fiction just as much!