good books to read in summer

The Best Books I Read in June 2021

Posted on by AmandaKay

How are we already halfway through 2021? 

This month came in with high expectations for a kickboxing challenge and a new round of running training. Then, I fell down and badly scraped/bruised my bad knee, which needs a nice, tight, painful-on-a-scab brace when I do any kind of higher-impact cardio. Ah, the best laid plans.

The bonus of being couch-bound is… more reading time! 

Here are the best books I read in the month of June, with mini-reviews and links to full reviews where relevant! 

(Full disclosure: Book links are affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission if you choose to purchase. Thanks in advance for your support!) 

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

Cover image courtesy of Goodreads

Format: E-Book (Library Copy)

Why I Read It: Bookstagram made me do it 

It took me a while to pick up The Flatshare because the premise is a little bit dubious — two roommates share a flat at opposite hours, so that they live in the same space but never cross paths. 

Instead, they exchange increasingly numerous post-it notes throughout the days, until at last, they meet and sparks fly. 

This is such a sweet, hilarious romantic comedy with well-developed characters and the best use of dual narration I’ve seen in the genre! Strongly recommend this if you love a good rom com. 

My full review appeared in Your Book Friend, here. 

Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian

Photo by the author, featuring Azula and Ozzy

Format: Hardcover (Book of the Month early release copy)

Why I Read It: I was obsessed with Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” as a kid. Like, memorized the whole thing for a poetry assignment even though the requirement was only 30 lines levels of obsessed. 

When I saw that Half Sick of Shadows existed, I was incredibly excited. My little Lady of Shalott obsessed heart grew two sizes, and I immediately picked it for my Book of the Month. 

Like a lot of anticipated reads, I dove in immediately and then slowed down to make the experience last longer. I really like Sebastian’s spin on the King Arthur legend, which gives women more agency in their stories. Elaine is an oracle, and the author of her own story (and, to a certain extent, of Arthur’s as well).

This book is steeped in magic and legend, and full of the weight that being able to see possible future paths brings upon Elaine. Sebastian writes in three tenses — the past as Elaine remembers how she became who she is, the present as events unfold, and the future in the form of her visions. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, for all that it kind of stressed me out watching Elaine try to produce the best possible future out of the options on the table. Definitely recommend it to any fans of Arthurian legend and feminist retellings of myths. 

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

Cover image courtesy of Goodreads

Format: Audiobook (LibroFM)

Why I Read It: So many positive reviews out there, particularly of the audio as read by Green. 

In my full review of this one, I mentioned how I kind of wanted to be underwhelmed by this book. Every now and again when something (or someone) is cropping up everywhere, I want to resist jumping on the bandwagon. It’s why I don’t listen to Beyoncé (sorry), and why I never watched Game of Thrones. 

But I couldn’t resist checking out Green’s first collection of essays, and… it’s excellent. Like, as a fellow writer of creative nonfiction I’m furious that this phenomenal book is out in the world levels of excellent. 

Green’s meditative, thoughtful essays-in-reviews of various aspects of a human-centered planet gripped me and made me think about what it is to be a person in the world. 

I highly recommend The Anthropocene Reviewed (particularly on audio, as read by Green) to anyone who wants to think about their humanness with a quiet, insistent hope in spite of it all. 

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

Cover image courtesy of Goodreads

Format: Ebook (purchased)

Why I Read It: Great British Bake Off inspired romantic comedy? May as well be casting a summoning circle for yours truly. 

This was a bit of a disappointing reading experience for me, but as I explored for Coffee Time Reviews, it wasn’t the book’s fault. 

I had built up my expectations to be a certain kind of story when I first heard this GBBO-inspired rom com was being written. It’s a great story, and a fun one, but it isn’t the one I imagined, and so… I struggled with it a bit. 

Nevertheless, it’s well-written with a fun cast of characters and a peak behind the reality TV curtain. I highly recommend this one to fans of baking shows and to those who love a good LGBTQ+ romance. 

Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey

Photo by the author

Format: Paperback 

Why I Read It: Kerry Winfrey. Ohio. That’s all I needed to know. 

A new Kerry Winfrey release is basically my own personal kind of holiday. Even if the premise and pitch for this one gave me a bit of pause (it’s billed as “You’ve Got Mail meets sexy Mr. Rodgers”), I knew I was going to love it. 

Very Sincerely Yours is a lighthearted, fun romp of a love story with a little bit of millennial quarter-life crisis thrown in. Teddy doesn’t know who she wants to be when she grows up, and isn’t that a whole mood. I really enjoyed our couple and the open earnestness with which they approach their budding relationship. 

This is a dual perspective romance because apparently that’s just what the genre is doing right now, but I didn’t hate it. Given the catfish potential of the premise, it’s even a smart move so we don’t suspect that either party isn’t truly behind their emails. 

My full review appeared in Your Book Friend, and I’ll reiterate that this is a great pick for fans of You’ve Got Mail and anyone who’s struggled to determine what they want to do with their life. 

That’s All, Folks

There you have it, my best reads for the month of June! I also read One Last Stop but I’m not including it here because I wouldn’t consider it one of my best reads of the month. It was kind of slow through the middle in a way that just left me dragging myself through as opposed to enjoying it.

Next up, I’m finishing The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels and then hurrying my way through some library e-book holds before my next print read. 

What are the best books you read in June? Any anticipated reads for July? 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, why not follow Your Book Friend to stay up to date on the latest? This post originally appeared on our Medium publication.

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The Best Books I Read in May 2021

Posted on by AmandaKay

Mini-reviews and recommendations to add to your TBR

I don’t know about you, but for me, May felt like the first month where time started moving forward again in a way I could at least half-recognize. I got my first shot of the COVID vaccine, embraced the longer days of sunshine, and even went on a short solo getaway. 

What did I do with my night away from the dog and the man? Obviously, I read an entire book while sitting beside the campfire I built myself. 

Summer to me is synonymous with reading, and so unsurprisingly I read several books in the month of May. What did surprise me was how many of them I completely adored! Allow me to expand your TBR with mini-reviews of the best books I read this month! 

(Full disclosure: Book links featured below are affiliate links. Mentions of Book of the Month are referral codes.)

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Cover image courtesy of Goodreads

Format: Audiobook (LibroFM)

Why I Read It: As a writer of nonfiction myself, I always feel called to read any memoir or essay collection that’s popping up in list after list. I kept seeing this one, and so, I selected it for this month’s audiobook credit

Crying In H Mart is an unflinching look not just at grief, but at the experience of being a caregiver and growing up as a Korean American woman. 

Zauner does not shy away from her mother’s flaws or her own regrets as she explores their relationship, using food as a lens to view love and sickness and grief. Food is a powerful thing, and in Zauner’s case, a way to connect to the half of her that is Korean. 

The descriptions of supermarket aisles and dishes prepared will make you hungry, and the sharp depictions of sickness and caregiving will bring you close to tears. 

Zauner manages to depict the fullness of her mother and their relationship without the sugarcoating grief so often lends, bringing a woman who feels real and vibrant and flawed and human to the page. 

I will say, I sometimes felt uncertain of the organizational structure of the book — some chapters/sections did not follow chronology in a way that occasionally made me feel unbalanced and even confused. This may be a product of audio, where I do sometimes have more trouble following the form of a thing, and I always found my way back to the story eventually. 

I recommend this book to mothers, to the mothered, and those who have grieved, as well as anyone who loves a good, food-centric memoir. 

There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura, Translated by Polly Barton 

Photo credit: Amanda Kay Oaks 

Format: Paperback 

Why I Read It: To tick off the “book in translation” task from Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge

I wrote a full review for this one in Coffee Time Reviews so I’ll keep my comments here fairly brief. I feel like this book is the ideal example of what challenges like Read Harder aim to do. It’s unlikely I would’ve ended up reading There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job if not for the challenge, and that would’ve been a real shame.

I absolutely adored this book and am so glad I read it, in spite of all my hesitation when it arrived on my doorstep in all its 400 page bulk. I recommend it to… well, to anyone who’s ever worked a job and searched for the bigger meaning. Which I think is just about all of us. 

How Not to Fall in Love by Jacqueline Firkins

Cover image courtesy of Goodreads

Format: E-book (Thank you to HMH and NetGalley for this Advanced Review Copy in exchange for my honest review)

Why I Read It: Chose it from NetGalley because the synopsis sounded good

Please excuse me while I arm flail excitedly about this book. When I grabbed it from the virtual shelves of NetGalley, I expected it might be a fun read, but I did not expect it would be one of the fun reads. The ones that keep you up late because you can’t put them down. The ones that feel like they were written for you.

I gushed for over 1,000 words over on Coffee Time Reviews, so I’ll try not to say too much more here except that I absolutely loved this book and you should probably go ahead and preorder it on Amazon or directly from the publisher, so you can read it as soon as it comes out on December 21st of this year. 

I… probably am going to do that, too, if I’m honest. I want to look at this book on my shelf and remember how fun it was to read. 

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Cover image courtesy of Goodreads

Format: Hardcover (Book of the Month edition)

Why I Read It: Emily Henry. Need I say more? 

I won’t lie to you — I started to blurb this book, thinking it would just be a feature in this Best Books column… except then I wrote well above a short mini-review and realized that I had more to say. 

What can I say? Sometimes, a book just begs for a full review. 

I adored this book, as I should’ve expected after the joy that was Henry’s prior novel, Beach Read. Plus, you know I love a good book with Ohio references. Throw in the friends to lovers trope and I am so there, it’s insane. 

I actually did not realize that People We Meet On Vacation was a friends-to-lovers story until I got started, and was a little wary on overdoing the trope since I read How Not to Fall in Love directly prior. Thankfully, the two books handle their shared premise very differently, in part due to the gap in age between their respective protagonists. Since my full review is available in Coffee Time Reviews, I’ll leave it at that for now!

I recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a good summer read, who loves adventure and travel, or people who love a good friends-to-lovers romance. 

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev 

Photo credit: Amanda Kay Oaks (@iamyourbookfriend )

Format: Digital library copy

Why I read it: Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors has been on my TBR for a while now, and unlike most of the hundreds of books that languish on my Goodreads “want to read” shelf, I actually did get around to it. Shockingly, there was no wait list for this one on Libby, so I snatched it up. 

This story takes the familiar plot and characters of Pride and Prejudice as its inspiration, but twists them up and mixes them around in a way that creates a fresh new story. I would call it more of an “inspired by” than an adaptation, for all that one of the characters is called Darcy. 

Initially, it took me a while to get into this one because I think I expected more of a straightforward retelling. It is a truth universally acknowledged that I personally expect any and all adaptations of Pride & Prejudice to open with these words, so that was shocker number one. 

I didn’t fully get that the Darcy traits would belong to our heroine rather than our hero until a few chapters in, and so it took me a bit to get into the flow and understand what Dev was doing with the story. 

I also loathe a romance that alternates perspectives, so I was miffed when we jumped into DJ’s head the first time. However, Dev won me around on this structure — it was interesting to see the thoughts in the heads of our prideful, prejudiced duo and see how they each viewed their own actions in all the misunderstandings that inevitably ensued. 

In all, this was a good read for me, and one of those books that I think I’d have liked all the better if it hadn’t followed such stiff competition (I read it directly after People We Meet On Vacation). 

I definitely recommend this one if you enjoy a good Jane Austen adaptation that takes on a life of its own, with a diverse cast and some gender-bending of the main character types. 

I’m going to round this post off with a few honorable mentions, because I read too many books this month to include them all here: 

So that’s my May in books and reading! I tore through a ton of books this month and have left my 30 book Goodreads challenge in the dust. I’m still debating where to set my new bar, or if I want to put a numeric goal on my reading year at all. I’m thinking I might up it to 50 and see where that gets me, but we shall see. 

Now that I’ve shared my month in reading, I’m curious to know about yours! Have you read any of these books? Do you plan to? 

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