5 Books to Read This Summer

The days are slowing counting down to summer. That means we'll want to listen to music on loud, hang out on the beach with a chilled drink and try your hardest to get a tan, and celebrate most weekends with garden parties and barbeques. And possibly getting drunk, if you're of age.

However, like most people, you struggle on which books to take on holiday with you. Summery books are not hard to find, but books that put you in the mood are definitely hard to come by. So here are 5 books that I completely recommend!

Simon VS the Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

This is a very sweet, quick read about a boy, Simon who's emailing some guy from her school called Blue. However, a guy gets hand of it and blackmails Simon into helping him, if not then his secret will be exposed. As a gay teenager, myself I truly felt that Becky did a very good job at portraying not only a realistic gay relationship, but also at portraying a realistic blackmailing situation.


The Selection by Kiera Cass // Review //

Not everyone wants a contemporary in the summer, so why not go for a book that's basically The Bachelor set in a slightly Dystopian setting. It's fun, flirty and will have you falling heads over heels for Prince Maxon.


A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas // Review //

This book was so freaking good, I simply ate it up! It's a YA Fantasy re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, where our main protagonist, Feyre kills a wolf and ends up having to repay for her crime by staying at the manor of a Beast. An incredibly charming beast.


Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell // Review //

Okay, so no one really wants to read about school (College in this situation) during the summer, but Fangirl is the ultimate read. It will have you gushing not only after Cath and Levi, but her fan fiction relationship of Simon and Baz. I wish my life were as cute as Caths.


All Lined Up by Cora Carmack

I wanted a New Adult book in this list since not everyone is a fan of YA, so I opted for All Lined Up. It's the first book in the Rusk University series and follows a Football hating girl called Dallas, who meets a football player called Carson. The problem? She's the coaches daughter and he's on the football team.




What books would you recommend people read in the summer?
Let me know in the comments.

Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Fangirl

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Genre: Contemporary
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: January 30th 2014
Page Number: 459
Rating: 4/5

 

Summary:

 

Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She's horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life. Without Wren Cath is completely on her own and totally outside her comfort zone. She's got a surly room-mate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words ...And she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone. Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realizing that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible ...

 

Review:

 

After reading Eleanor and Park - Which I absolutely loved by the way - I decided to wait until the paperback of Fangirl came out, so I could read it and enjoy all the extra comic pictures of the characters. And once again I was not disappointed by Rainbow Rowell. Is there nothing she can't do?

 

The story follows twins Cath and Wren who are about to start College and while Wren wants her own independence, it's clear that Cath doesn't. She want's her roommate to be Wren, she wants to write fan fiction with Wren, she wants to be joint at the hips with Wren like she always has been. On her first day of College we're introduced to both Levi and Reagan, who play a huge part of the story as well as Wren, Cath's father and Nick. It's instant that there's somewhat an attraction between Cath and Levi and it really is great to see an older, more mature character in a YA book. It's refreshing. Over the story we see a lot of ups and down, but also a lot of hot makeup scenes and I'm not talking about Levi and Cath. In fact there's more action happening between Simon and Baz then it is Levi and Cath.

 

Cath wasn't the best character to have as a main protagonist. I found her to be extremely immature for her age and the fact that she became a recluse because she was too scared wasn't very convincing. I think she was lost without her Twin, Wren who was an epic character and full of sass! Still Cath was extremely boring. Her days went like this:

 

1. Wake up

2. Have breakfast

3. Go to class

4. Stay in the library

5. Sleep

 

It became annoying, but after the incident that happened with her father she came out of her shell, which was great because we got to know her a bit more, but it would've worked better if she weren't so lonely, annoying and immature.

 

The other main protagonist in this book was Levi. He is definitely a great character: witty and full of charm and has a slight obsession with gay fan fiction - sorry, not sorry - His relationship with Cath was very confusing. It was borderline friendship/awkwardness and then after the whole he-kissed-another-girl-in-his-kitchen incident it felt like he realised that he liked Cath a lot more than he thought and decided to act like a jerk - a sweet jerk - and he still is one of my favourite book characters.

 

Overall, I really loved that Fangirl was set in College because there's no other YA book set in college. I loved that despite her annoying traits, Cath showed the awkwardness and nervousness of going to college for the first time and having a hard time settling in. But to be honest, its Rainbow Rowell, so it wasn't going to be bad.....Unless Levi was never in the story and then it would be bad. But I really enjoyed it and found myself to fly through it very quickly. 

New Adult Recommendations

New Adult was never really a huge genre before, but now it's one of the biggest and most loved. I started reading New Adult after I found Erotica (50 shades) to be too much sex for me. I wanted something sexy, but fun, with great storylines as well. So here are 5 of my favourite New Adult books.

 

 

 

 

After by Anna Todd - Anna Todd became famous after 'After' become one of Wattpad's most read books. It may have been a 1D Fan Fiction originally, but everyone fell in love with it. I haven't read the published version, but I have read the Wattpad version. It was good.

 

Breathe by Abbi Glines - This is a big series, so you may want to make sure you have a lot of time on hand to read these. Not only is there the Sea Breeze series, but there's also the Rosemary Beach, and the Too Far series. That is a lot of sexy New Adult.

 

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire - Jamie is one of my favourites. Her books are so addictive with incredible characters and a lot of drama. The relationship in Beautiful Disaster is a little intense, but Travis 'Mad-Dog' Maddox is sexy-as-sin and so are his brothers.

 

Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover - Colleen Hoover is the Queen of New Adult. There isn't one book I've read by her that I haven't loved, and what makes Maybe Someday the perfect New Adult is that it's more up-beat and comes with a side track. Also, Maybe Not was recently released, so it's definitely the right time to read it!

 

Slammed by Colleen Hoover - Like I said, QUEEN! Slammed is even better than Maybe Someday. It's filled with three beautiful, intense, heart-breaking storylines. And it's also got incredible slam poetry. Everything about this book was beautiful and I guess it's why she's been quotes as the 'female version of Nicholas Sparks'

 

 

What are some of your favourite New Adult books?