The Summer Reads you Should Add to Your TBR (and the ones you shouldn't)

We're feeling spicy today

Today we’re taking a break from our Speculating on Fiction series and spilling the tea on summer reads. We’re sharing the books that we think you should pick up, and the ones that you can probably skip. This list contains some new releases, as well as back list, so there’s something for everyone!

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

This book was a delight. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more people raving about it, because to me, this book is the book of summer 2024, period. A retelling of Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope, Lies and Weddings follows the Gresham family, opening with the eldest daughter’s wedding, where the Countess of Greshamsbury is scheming to set up her only son, Rufus, with an heiress — but soon, the family’s plans go up in flames.

Kwan writes in clear, unfussy prose, and his lavish descriptions of designer clothes, wealthy mansions, and exciting faraway locations are like eating a gloriously fluffy red velvet cupcake (and I 100% mean this as a compliment). This book includes forbidden love, multiple family scandals, financial crises, and upwards of three weddings — one of the weddings takes place on actual hot air balloons in Morocco, and if that isn’t enough to convince you to pick up this book, I don’t know what is.
- S

Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

In the first chapter of this Bad Summer People, a body is found on the boardwalk — from here, we rewind in time to follow the events of the summer: Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island over the summer. As the other wealthy New Yorkers trail in for the season, we start to see relationships unravel one by one. As one would expect from a ‘rich people problems’ type of book, there’s lying, subterfuge, and bad behavior.

But this book wasn’t it. I usually love ‘rich people problems’ but this book had no heart. It wasn’t enjoyable for me to read about rich people behaving badly when those rich people were also despicable; the author made no effort to render the characters sympathetic. When I read about someone being cheated on, I still want to feel bad for them; or I at least want to feel that they had it coming. In this book, I just didn’t care about any of it — so at the end, when the dead person’s identity is revealed, and we find out how it happened, it was completely boring to me. Skip this one and read more Kevin Kwan instead.
- S

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

If you haven’t had the chance to listen to The Novel Tea’s episode where we talk about our mid-year picks of the year, check it out here for more book recommendations! The Villa by Rachel Hawkins was Shruti’s beach read pick and I could not agree more with her sentiments. I listened to this book on audio and had such a fun experience.

Emily and Chess are best friends, but also not really. They are both writers and Chess’ success bears a huge shadow over Emily’s relationship with Chess. So when Chess comes up with the idea of going on a trip to Italy, Emily agrees but isn’t stoked about it. The villa they have booked is an infamous holiday home where a famous rockstar was once murdered, and Emily decides to use this as an inspiration for her writing. As more secrets of the murder and Emily’s relationship with Chess comes to light, the villa starts to become a character of its own.

-N

Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

Happy Hour follows a couple of young twenty-somethings bumbling around in New York City, selling knick-knacks to make money for cabs¹ to the hottest parties, meeting guys who interest them, then don’t, and being foolish together. The best feature of this book is that it’s funny — the narrator has a dry, unassuming wit that jumps out in unexpected places.

I didn’t end up finishing this book, but it’s only because I read it on the heels of two other ‘summer’ books (Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, and Bad Summer People)² and by that time I needed something with a little more substance. But I genuinely enjoyed living in the mind of the protagonist, and I look forward to picking it up again next summer.
- S

Funny Story by Emily Henry

Daphne loved the way her fiancé told the story of how they met… but at his bachelor party before their wedding, he realized that he had been in love with his childhood friend Petra this whole time. This leaves Daphne without a partner, friends, and her home. Daphne is desperate to move on and ends up becoming roommates with Petra’s ex, Miles. She and Miles strike up a friendship and decide to start deceiving their exes with a fake relationship that complicates everything.

I knew exactly what I was getting into when I picked up this book. I had heard enough about it, and though it was my first Emily Henry book, I had a pretty accurate idea of what her vibe was. Despite all this, this book was a huge let-down for me. I had to look up a summary to remember the premise of the story to summarize it for you even though I just finished it two weeks ago. It was forgettable, the characters were bland, and some of the personality traits of the characters made me cringe way too hard. Skip.

-N

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

This one’s a throwback, but I haven’t heard anyone talking about it in years, so I figured it was time to bring it back. Anne, Neely, and Jennifer become friends when they all move to New York City in the 1940s to try to make it big — but as they begin to find love and fame, things start to go badly.

Valley of the Dolls is a story of glamor and beauty, but it is also a story of pain and harm. Beyond the sex, drugs, and rock & roll (which are loads of fun to read about), the book also shows us how the women unravel, chronicling the suffering that they face from their situations, and the people around them.

So to me, this book is a perfect summer read: rich people behaving badly, yes. But with real consequences.
- S

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

“Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the Queen in the palm of your hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And from that, there is no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point to your murder.”

Sixty years after Frances receives this fortune with her two best friends for fun, she is found dead. Annie, Frances’ niece, and other members of the family must solve this murder to seal the fate of Frances’ fortune. The story alternates between Frances’ past, and Annie’s struggle to unravel the mysteries of her great-aunt’s relationships.

When a book compares itself to Knives Out and Agatha Christie, I had high expectations for this book. The premise of the story was great, but in the end, it just fell flat. There were too many characters to keep track of, and the more important characters lacked the depth that I wanted to root for or suspect anyone in my own process of deciphering the mysteries. This was a miss for me.

-N

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A Summer Series: Speculating on Fiction

We recently started a new series for the summer called Speculating on Fiction, as a follow-up to Season 3 of our podcast, Other Worlds.

In this series, we tackle big works of speculative fiction, thinking about their imagined worlds, their impact on characters and story, and what all of it is saying. Here are the first two in the series, in case you missed them (there are no major plot spoilers, so you can go ahead and click even if you haven’t read the books!):

The Multiverse of Emily St. John Mandel

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld: Beauty and Evolution

Next week, we’ll be talking about Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series — while you’re waiting, be sure to check out the podcast, where you’ll find deep dives into other books you’ve loved!

1. Why does everyone in NYC in books and movies take taxis everywhere? Especially when they are struggling to make ends meet? The subway is a fraction of the cost!! Someone make it make sense.

2. Both of these books seemed like they were trying very hard to fit in to a formula of what a ‘beach read’ or ‘summer read’ ought to be; after a while, it got exhausting. It felt like the characters were just putting on a poorly executed version of a high school play where nothing really mattered. It turns out that there is a such thing as too many beach reads.