5 Good reads to stretch out your summer

What are you reading these days? One of my favorite parts about summer is getting caught up in a good book (or two, or three) and allowing myself time to read, preferably outdoors in a park or near a lake. I’m still in denial about fall approaching (46 days to be exact), so I like the idea of extending the feeling of summer and diving into a new book. I usually like to read about relationships or coming-of-age stories, so if we have that in common, here are 5 books you might be interested in:

The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
Kind of a guide for twenty-something women as they figure out relationships and find themselves, this novel follows the life of Jane, starting from when she is 14 years old. It is split into 7 sections, 5 of which recount Jane’s relationships and how she grew from them, the others revolving around her struggles with her career. It made me laugh and cry, since I felt it intimately captured what growing up as a woman is really like.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed
(Non-fiction) Reading about a young woman’s journey hiking the Pacific Crest Trail made me want to get out and be surrounded by nature everyday. The challenges she pushes herself through are truly motivating and just made me feel like a lazy slob for not getting outside enough.

Lost Girls and Love Hotels by Catherine Hanrahan
Margaret works in Tokyo teaching English to Air-Pro flight stewardesses. But at night, she loses herself in drugs and sex and dangerous relationships.  Tough on the outside, but fragile on the inside, Margaret gets involved in activities that threaten her life to repress childhood memories.

Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland
Susan, a former child star, is involved in a plane crash and miraculously survives without anyone knowing. She uses this opportunity to reinvent her identity. Meanwhile, John, a big shot film producer, lives in a whirlwind of drugs and women. When he has a near-death experience, he decides to give up his all his possessions and live on the street. While these two souls are reinventing themselves in Los Angeles, they happen to find each other.

Thumbsucker by Walter Kirn
You might have seen the movie, but trust me, it does not compare! From the author of Up in the Air, this book follows a young man throughout his teens as he is confronted with a dysfunctional family, ADD, drugs, sex and religion amongst other things. Like most teenagers, he experiences raw emotions and questions his purpose of being, in a very mature and relatable way.

Happy reading!