Four Books to Get You Excited For Summer by Haneen Elmeswari

As the weather starts to get warm and the leaves start to grow again, get back into the reading mood with the right book. Whether your summer plans include an adventurous vacation, or just lounging around romanticizing life, these books will provide you with the perfect literary escape.

Best Summer Romance

“People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry

Following last year’s popular book, “Beach Read,” “People We Meet On Vacation” is an absorbing and entertaining read. Based on the film “When Harry Met Sally,” this novel follows your classic ‘friends to lovers’ trope. There’s plenty of romantic tension in this novel, which is offset by protagonist Poppy’s anxiety about her future (career, location; ennui typical of millennials).

The story is enriched by Henry’s vivid depiction of early-30s uncertainty and angst, which adds an interesting personalgrowth dimension. With sassy wordplay, Henry keeps the friends-to-lovers trope from feeling old. Plus, Poppy and love interest Alex’s connection feels genuine, like an old-fashioned romance. We can imagine ourselves in Poppy’s heels or Alex’s khakis, realizing we’re in love with our close friend but wary of the downside of committing.

Best Angst Contemporary Novel

“Writers and Lovers” by Lily King

King returns to contemporary life with “Writers and Lovers” after her previous novel “Euphoria,” in which she imagined anthropologist Margaret Mead in a romantic triangle during a 1933 field trip to New Guinea. “Writers and Lovers” surrounds Casey Peabody, a 31-year-old aspiring writer, who bikes three miles to and from work as a waitress in Harvard Square, trying to pay off over $70,000 in student debt. Her home is a former potting shed that still smells of “loam and rotting leaves” attached to a friend of her brother’s garage. Casey’s opening quotation is breezy and potent: “I have a pact with myself not to think about money in the morning. I’m like a teenager trying not to think about sex. But I’m also trying not to think about sex.”

“Writers and Lovers” shows a funny look at grief, and, worse, it’s dangerously romantic, both bold enough and fearless enough to imagine the possibility of eternal happiness. The novel is a vision showcasing the economic hell that so many young people are living in today: serving extraordinary wealth, but apart from it at the same time. Casey has been writing her novel for six years, barely making

ends meet with an exhausting restaurant job that has horrible hours and no benefits. King has created an irresistible heroine in Cast, equally vulnerable and tenacious, and upon picking up the book, you become immediately invested in her search for comfort, love, and success.

illustration by Chloe Ruiz

Best Audiobook

“Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller

The last mythical figure you might try to rework as a romantic hero would be Achilles, a one-man genocide whose defining characteristic was unquenchable rage. “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller depicts the lover underneath the bloodshed and fury. This story is told from Patroclus’ perspective, who, exiled by his father to live in the court of Peleus, falls in love with his host’s son, the superhuman Achilles: an Achilles from birth, he is swifter, more beautiful, and more skilled than any other human being.

Frazer Douglas narrates the audiobook in an appealing British accent and a subdued tone; his transitions between dialogue and narrative are smooth and consistent, emphasizing Miller’s poetic language. Patroclus’ fascination with and love for Achilles is what listeners hear in its fullness; we feel like first-hand witnesses to their growing intimacy and are swept along by the romance surrounding it. Anyone familiar with The Iliad knows the outcome of this epic love story, yet to hear it in the sweet and entrancing words of Madeline Miller is like a whole new story.

Best Classic

“Atonement” by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan’s ‘’Atonement’’ is a story of love, war, and the destructive powers of imagination. The book also takes all the themes the author has developed over the years -- such as the dangers and pitfalls of innocence, the hold time past has over the present day, and the intrusion of evil into society--and orchestrates them in a way that is as affecting as it is gripping. . The first half of the book is set in the English countryside in 1935, and it is this setting that draws in a sense of escapism and the same nostalgia you might feel for a hot, English summer you have never experienced. With a hefty fortune, the Tallises live in a beautiful mansion with servants, a pool, lush gardens, and a very memorable fountain.

The story depicts a 13-year-old girl who tells a horrible lie that sends her older sister’s lover to jail and destroys the upper-middle-class lifestyle of the family. As in so many early McEwan novels, this shocking event exposes the psychological fault lines that run through his characters’ lives and forces them to make moral decisions. It will also emphasize the class tensions in England during the 1930s and the social changes brought about by World War II.

Now that you have all the right book recommendations, elevate your experience with a corresponding playlist. We’ve created a Spotify code for you to scan that will take you to a playlist specifically made with these books in mind.