Your Five Essential Beach Reads For the

Your ESSENTIAL BEACH READS 5 FOR THE SUMMER

by Nada Abdelkader

If you’ve noticed the sizzling heat and you’re already planning your trip to your summer home, then you already know what it is. It’s time for you to let go of your worries, relax by the beach, and enjoy your beach read as you listen to the waves crash in.

But here’s a thought. Why should you only get one decent book as opposed to five essential, gripping reads you’ll be burning through like lightning? Don’t worry, we’ve already picked for you the best of the best beach-reading recommendations. 1 NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro

This book by British-Japanese Kazuo Ishiguro isn’t like any other on this list. For one thing, it’s about clones. And for another, it doesn’t at all start out that way.

Reading ‘Never Let Me Go’, you will find yourself introduced to Hailsham House, a British boarding school, and the children who go there. As you read about these children and their memories, narrated by an adult alum, you will find yourself lost in their world before you discover the truth.

None of them are real and they’re all clones. And that isn’t all what the story is about, either. As you read more, you will discover that Kazuo Ishiguro also dives into the world futuristic-medical 2 science, adult restlessness, and friendships that last lifetimes. WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE? by Maria Semple Maria Semple outdoes herself in this novel. The perfect comedy-mystery beach read, ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’ revolves around phobia-stricken mom and architect—the titular Bernadette—who suddenly goes missing on a family trip.

Don’t worry, though. Rather than tap into family dynamics, the novel taps into an investigation conducted by Bernadette’s daughter Bee, who collects documents like emails, magazine articles, transcripts, and the like to piece together the mysteries surrounding her mother’s life and possible whereabouts.

The result to all of this lead-finding and interesting prose is a heartwarming, funny introspective look at one woman’s life and how she decided that it isn’t too late to try to discover herself one last time.

3THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt A combination of a detective story and a gripping “film noir” movie, ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt is a novel that makes you hold your breath from cover to cover. We’re not exaggerating.

The story itself is about a group of college friends who bond under a classical literature professor’s teachings as they discover new worlds far beyond their scope of humdrum living. Naturally, everything doesn’t stay cool and collected as tensions mount between friends to turn what was once a close-knit circle into traitors trying to solve a murder mystery.

This isn’t all that Donna Tartt offers us in ‘The Secret History’, though. Reading it, you’ll also find that it is ripe and full to the brim with prose that is as beautiful as it is quotable. 4 LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE by Celeste Ng

Only on her second novel, Celeste Ng has already secured her spot in our favorite authors list because of this gift to readers. ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ takes place in a quasi-Stepford 1990’s American society, in which two families are tangled in each other’s lives by their children.

Although this novel is short in length, by most novel standards, Little Fires Everywhere is a riveting tale that delves into motherhood, mystery, and town-dividing debacles. And all of this, of course, is without mentioning the mysterious titular fire.

5AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by Agatha Christie Although most Agatha Christie works have gained near-legendary status, ‘And Then There Were None’ is, the best you’ll ever read. The novel starts out as a regular mystery set in 1930’s Europe in which ten strangers are invited to go to an island that is all but isolated from the mainland.

Suddenly, these ten strangers with nothing in common notice that all their rooms are the same, with copies of one nursery rhyme in place, and that something strange is happening on the island. Someone is hunting them one by one – this is where the novel turns into a haunting suspense-ridden tale about the last man standing and who is actually responsible for the strangers’ fates.