If you're a nerd like me, you definitely have your night table piled high with books you snagged from the nearest Barns and Noble. Every year since I was little, I would get my parents to take me to the bookstore or the library to get a large pile of books to read over the summer. Now ever since I started driving myself around, these book trips have started occurring much more than once a summer.
So here is my recommendations of must reads for Summer 2016. Happy reading!
1. "The Bell Jar" — Sylvia Plath
Poet Sylvia Plath is famous for her writing, but this is the only novel she wrote. Without giving away as much as I can, you'll find yourself in the shoes of Esther Greenwood and her crazy experiences. Beyond this, you'll slowly find yourself agreeing with her down the path of insanity. This book is incredibly mind boggling and you'll question your sanity by the end in itself.
2. "The Golden Hour" — Margaret Wurtele
Its 1944 in Tuscany, and before you write this off as another Holocaust book, think of a story being told by an everyday person in an entirely different place. This book masterfully combines the life of someone who should have a minimum impact by the Holocaust with a love story of a woman and a survivor. I found this not only hard to put down, but also impactful on my life once finished.
3. "Someday, Someday Maybe" — Lauren Graham
Ok, so Lauren Graham. The funny queen and sarcasm enthusiast. You may recognize her name from the awarded show "Gilmore Girls", but you may not have recognized her as a writer. This book had my heart along with it, laughing at her hilarious comedic moments and sympathizing with her main character when trouble came her way. In this, she writes about Franny Banks, a woman who gave herself six months to start an acting career and get her life together after moving to New York from college. We feel her ups and downs and seem like we're walking with her through her comedic struggles through life in New York City.
4. "The Great Gatsby" — F. Scott Fitzgerald
This perhaps needs no explanation. F. Scott Fitzgerald is a genius by himself and the Great Gatsby proves it more. You may have seen the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, but I strongly recommend you read the book if you were a fan. Of course, the book comes in more detail and a few originalities that the movie changed, but it truly is amazing.
5. "The Glass Castle" — Jeanette Walls
I picked this up from the bookstore hoping to broaden my horizons to memoirs in addition to plot-line books and absolutely loved this. This book is the story of a woman who is living well off in the city of New York, but also about her incredibly interesting and unfortunate childhood. Her parents never seemed like they were completely sane and she recounts the adventures of her childhood family, who were homeless by choice. I overall recommend this book greatly, it brings into light interesting issues facing our society today as told by personal experience, something we don't seem to see a lot anymore.
6. "The Cellar" — Natasha Preston
I have saved the best for last, as this is my overall favorite book I have ever read. This is a true story of 4 women who were kidnapped and lived in the cellar of a cabin in the middle of the woods. Sure this seems like every crime show you've ever watched, but this book gets much more sinister and heartbreaking as it goes on. I literally could not put this book down and read it all in one sitting. These four women told about in the book all have been renamed by their kidnapper and forced to become like a family for the many years they were down there. By the end of the read, you recognize the real psychological impacts that these women had for 10+ years down in this cellar with a man they eventually began to see as family. This is incredibly interesting and I highly recommend it.
