I’m one of those people that looks forward to summer mostly because it means I’ll finally be able to read books for fun. During the school year, the only reading I get to do is endlessly boring books and articles for classes that are almost never interesting and always too time-consuming. Therefore, this season gives me my much-awaited opportunity to get started on every good novel I’ve been missing out on. No matter what genre is your favorite, any reader will love these books, each perfect for road trips or days on the beach.

1. "The Assistants" by Camille Perri

This novel centers on Tina Fontana, an executive assistant to a CEO in Manhattan, after she turns a technical accounting error into an embezzlement scam to pay off her student loans and then becomes an advocate for all the underpaid, overqualified assistants trapped in their jobs across New York City.

2. "Reconstructing Amelia" by Kimberly McCreight

If you like mysteries, you’ll love this novel that follows a mother named Kate in Manhattan. She attempts to piece together the events leading up to her high school daughter’s death. It was ruled a suicide, but the more investigating Kate does, the more it starts to look like murder. Some of the chapters are flashbacks, some social media statuses, and some Facebook messages, making the book both unique and impossible to put down.

3. "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd

A short and sweet book perfect for summer, "The Secret Life of Bees" is set in South Carolina in 1964 and is about a young white girl, Lily, and her black housekeeper as they run away from Lily’s abusive father and end up at a honey farm, taken in by an eclectic trio of sisters. Lily manages to find answers about the mystery surrounding her mother’s death when she was a young child, as well as a place to finally call home.

4. "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova

Recently made into a movie, this book follows a brilliant Harvard linguistics professor as she discovers she has early onset Alzheimer’s and slowly loses her memory. You’ll want to finish this in a day as you read about her struggles to cope with the disease and its impacts upon her family and work life.

5. "Sarah’s Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay

This novel alternates narration between Julia, a modern-day American journalist, and Sarah, a young French Jewish girl whose family is arrested by the police and sent to an internment camp during World War II. Julia makes it her mission to find Sarah, and Sarah is determined to get back home to rescue the younger brother she locked in the closet in a naïve attempt to save him from the Nazis.

6. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn

Also made into an award-winning movie, "Gone Girl" is about the mystery surrounding the disappearance and evident murder of a woman named Amy. Her diary entries point the guilt towards her husband, Nick, who swears he’s innocent and begins an investigation of his own. Get ready for some insane plot twists with this book.

7. "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed

This is a true-story memoir about a woman who decided to hike over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail by herself. It’ll make you both admire Cheryl Strayed’s ability to overcome literally everything and motivate you to do something spontaneous and outdoorsy.

8. "The Light Between Oceans" by M. L. Stedman

This novel, notable both for its beautiful writing and plot that makes it impossible to stop reading, is about a couple living in a lighthouse on the remote shores of Australia who finds a washed-up boat on the beach one day with a dead man and a living baby. Having miscarried multiple times and desperate for a child of their own, they face the impossible choice of either keeping the baby or trying to find her birth mother.

9. "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand

This is a biography that will leave you questioning how a single person could possible survive the most unbelievably difficult things in the world. Read about the life of Louis Zamperini, who went from running in the Olympics to surviving a plane crash during World War II. As he survives with no resources on a life raft for 47 days, he is picked up by Japanese soldiers and sent to an internment camp as a prisoner of war for almost three years.

10. The "Divergent" trilogy by Veronica Roth

If you liked the "Hunger Games" series, you’ll be a fan of these books about a “deeply flawed, perfect” society in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world in which people are split up into five factions based on their personalities and skills. The carefully managed structure and order all changes with a girl named Tris, who sets off a chain of events that literally overthrows everything.

I could keep going, but these are my absolute top favorite books for summer reading. Whether you just want to pass the time on the drive up to your grandma’s house or are like me and could finish a novel in less than a day if given the time, you’ll love any of these this summer break.