Author Archive

Ahhh, summer…the time of beaches and barbeques and fireworks.  In spite of the fact that my days of summer vacation are long over, there’s still something about summer that makes me feel like I’m escaping the schoolbooks once again.

Thus, summer requires a different kind of reading than the rest of the year.  Summer books should be a little hotter than the books you read for the rest of the year.  They should be books you can imagine carrying to the beach, or onto an airplane on your way to a tropical vacation.  And even when they contemplate serious issues, they should do so in a way that sizzles.

Of course, anyone could hit the local bookstore and hit up the bestseller rack.  But what fun would that be?  So in the spirit of being a little more original, here are five books you could read to guarantee a sizzling summer.

Once upon a time (not so long ago), I was an awkward adolescent perusing the bookstore.  Back then, the young adult section consisted of one lonely shelf.  My options were pretty limited: either the pseudo-horror of R.L. Stein or the Love Story-esque teen romances of Lurlene McDaniel.   By the time I was about 12, I decided that adult books were more suited to my tastes, and I abandoned the world of young adult literature altogether. 

Fast forward to 2009.  The young adult genre is hot, crowding out picture books and middle-grade series in the stores.  More and more adults are openly reading young adult books, and the stigma attached to such behavior is gone. 

The recent resurgence of the young adult genre can be attributed, in large part, to the success of the Harry Potter books; more recently, the Twilight series has kept the trend going.  And I, for one, have made no secret out of the fact that I’ve enjoyed these types of books.   But the Twilight series is by no means great literature.  But what I’ve discovered through my recent exploration of the young adult literary world is that there’s better stuff out there, intelligent, thought-provoking stuff that would make great reading for any preteen or teen.