Looking for a summer read but don’t know where to start? If you feel like you’ve exhausted your bookshelf and just browsing the library or your local bookstore leaves you overwhelmed, then take a look at some of these pre-approved books to get you started. All suggestions guaranteed to be worth your time:

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

This memoir shows the real-life horrors and treasures that Susanna Kaysen found within the walls of a psychiatric hospital where she spent two years of her life. After being instituted at eighteen, Kaysen shows readers a personal side to extreme mental disorders. She vividly describes her fellow patients as not a group of hopeless psychos, but as real people who, behind the suffocating mask of their mental disease, are completely and utterly human. If you watched and/or enjoyed American Horror Story Asylum, then give this book a try. Also, the movie adaption of it is pretty spot-on and has Angelina Jolie playing diagnosed sociopath and rebel, Lisa.

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

If you’re looking for a funny, easy read this summer then make sure to pick up this book. Bridget Jones is awkward, has a complicated love-life, loves alcohol and cigarettes too much, and is forever on a journey of self improvement. The narrative is funny, relatable, and written in diary form—which seems to make books much more fun to read. Hopefully you’ll love the book as much as I did, in which case you can also add the sequel and the respective movies to your summer to-do list.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Ever have dreams of quitting school and pursuing the craziest-non-degree-requiring job you can think of? In this book, Jacob Jankowski does just that. In the wake of a family tragedy, Jacob leaves Cornel University and joins the circus by becoming the animal caretaker, learns the intensity of the circus-lifestyle, and falls in love with the married star performer. While this book is a little on the longer side, it’s certainly a page turner that you can’t go wrong with.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

This historical fiction gem tells the story of Ernest Hemingway’s marriage to his wife, Hadley. Narrated from Hadley’s point of view, this book is filled with romance, betrayal, and the struggles of their failed marriage. The two lived an extraordinary life, with this story highlighting the time they spent in Paris while Hemingway was writing his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. If you’re a fan of travel, powerful women, or any of Ernest Hemingway’s books, read this immediately.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Since you’ve probably come in contact with a TV, movie theater, or the internet in the past month, you most likely already know that this movie is coming out soon, and it’s expected to be a hit. If you have any kind of feeling what-so-ever that you might see this in the theaters, then do yourself a huge favor, and read the book first. The most common phrase of book-lovers everywhere is probably “the book was better than the movie”, and since I haven’t seen this movie yet—for obvious reasons—I cannot attest to this statements in this specific scenario. But, this book is so good that you mustn’t punish yourself by skipping it in favor of the movie, because it is such a beautiful combination of words on paper. It’s a story about a desperately poor, ordinary, and able-bodied girl named Louisa who is hired as the caretaker of the handsome, wealthy, and mysterious Will. Unfortunately, he is completely paralyzed from the neck down after being involved in a devastating accident. You’ll cry your eyes out and love every second of it, I promise.