Ranking the Books I Read This Summer

Every school year, May trickles in and I picture a summer day where all I do is read the ever-growing stack books I’ve accumulated since sixth grade. These books have various origins… Some from ThriftBooks, some from Barnes and Nobles, some from friends… Who am I kidding? They’re all from the used bookstore where I decimate their inventory multiple times a year while also single handedly paying for their goal to get a real air conditioner. I’ve had to clean out two cabinets meant for my clothes in order to store books and I’m rapidly running out of space. Books litter my floors in the bags they were purchased in because I have nowhere else to store them, they sit in piles next to my desk and my bed and my door. 

And so, I daydream of days dedicated to diluting the dusty tomes that lay destitute in my cabinets. This past summer, I did get through a few books, though I hardly made any noticeable progress in my stacks.

Now that I’m back in school, I’d like to reminisce on my summer of light reading with a quick 1 to 12 rating of my favorite and least favorite reads from the past few summer months.

1. Ishmael

This book really had me in the first half. I hated it, I thought it was pretentious and Orson-Scott-Card-I-need-to-get-on-a-soap-box-esque, and I hated Ishmael. But I decided to try to see why it had survived the tests of time and captured the interest of my English teacher, and boy, am I glad I did. I now know that hating the book in the first half is only part of the process and that you have to go in with an open mind, and even then, it might not be your cup of tea. If you’re an anthropology nerd like me, or are even remotely interested in human culture and the origin of humanity, this book is perfect. 

I finished this book the night before we went back to school at a Regrettes concert and it couldn’t have been a better finale for a book like that. This book will enrage you, turn you inside out, call you a mooch of nature, kiss you on the head, make you fall in love with the world, and leave you biting your nails while you think about a wise old gorilla as you’re falling asleep and wondering if we could ever fix the world.

2. God Emperor of Dune

This is by far the wackiest sci-fi book I’ve ever read, and it’s certainly (somehow) the craziest installation of the Dune book series I’ve read yet. I know this book is polarizing and I completely understand why some people would despise it, but I have no better word for this book than camp. “Worm and wife” is a real quote from this book. The idea of a mega monster tyrant worm that’s like thousands of years old and a million Duncan Idahos is just fantastic. 

Normally, reading books from this series takes me forever: I once knew someone that called them “summer reads” because it couldn’t be done during the school year, and thank god I read this during the summer so I could truly focus on how batshit Crazy with a capital ‘C’ this novel is. Now that I’m onto the fifth book, it’s tough to continue knowing what I once had: the drama, the grandeur, the je nais se quoi of this novel… It’s unforgettable. I just miss it so much. I wish I could go back to the days where I’d turn a page and find out some new crazy thing that Leto II had done. 

Maybe Heretics of Dune will be crazy since I’m only 100 pages in, but I don’t know if it will ever shock me like God Emperor did. For people interested in trying out the Dune series, book one is great and super eventful. If you don’t make it through the second book, I get it. The first book is a lot and it’s a satisfying read, but book two is pretty fun and crazy and it’s shorter than the rest of the books. I personally found book three somewhat hard to get through, but I would say everything I did was worth it to make it to God Emperor of Dune. Please try to make it, you won’t regret it (though if you do it’s not my fault, you know what you’re getting into with old, white male sci-fi writers)!

3. Sleeping Giants

I had such a blast reading this book! The format was so engaging since the entire thing is told testimonial style through mission logs and recorded interviews. I flew through this book and got so obsessed with the characters. 

It was like a soap opera for me: the Avatar Trudy cocky but talented pilot that doesn’t work well with others, the tortured genius linguist with an arrogance that turns people away but also draws them in, the army man with a heart of gold and a sense of justice that goes too far, the mysteriously rich benefactor that will do anything to see the mission through, the passionate scientist that’s too close to the case and is inches away from proving alien existence– IT’S PERFECT. 

It’s like all of my favorite tropes put into one short and sweet sci-fi package that serves as the perfect beginning to a trilogy of epic proportions. I can’t wait to tear into the next two in the series!

4. Cress

When I say that I enjoyed the Lunar Chronicles, I mean that I enjoyed the first book and Cress. The individual plots for each group of characters made the book fly by and the way Rapuzel’s classic tale is incorporated into the plot of the series is super creative. It’s easily the best installment in the series despite it being a straight-up brick of paper.

5. Crow

Nico Demers’ second poetry collection lived up to expectations with another group of personal and vulnerable odes to life that were the perfect companions for a dewy summer morning. I’ll probably revisit these poems when the leaves start to change and fall off trees (in Southern California, that would be around December) so I can see if it’s an autumnal companion as well, but while it’s at least still hot, this book is perfect.

6. The Cliff House

I am a sucker for grocery store romance novels, and if you’re thinking about getting into this massive and oversaturated market as a consumer, RaeAnn Thayne is my go-to. She’s got endless romances set in coastal towns like The Cliff House, along with some excellent seasonal romances that I look forward to hunting down in Barnes and Noble as the year cycles through. All of her female characters are not vehicles for the ideal version of some man and often have to work through realistic issues while also experiencing some unconventional romance on the side. If you see my best friend RaeAnne at the grocery store or Barnes and Noble, try a book or two out.

7. Tell Me Three Things

I bought this book from a used bookstore five years ago and let it collect dust in my massive TBR pile until this summer. I expected it to be terrible, corny, all those things that have anything to do with social media and come from the mid 2010s, and basic. In reality, it was some of those things but in a good way! The main character’s struggle that fuels the story comes across as genuine and compelling, and the jokes got laughs out of me 90% of the time. If you’re looking for an emotional YA romance that revolves around messaging and moving on, check this one out.

8. Winter

I was really looking forward to witnessing the finale of the Lunar Chronicles after all the build-up from Cress, but Marissa Meyer really makes you work for it in Winter. I understand that endings are delicate things, but it was 800 pages long. It took me forever to get to the end, and while it was a pretty good ending, the sheer length and slow-build of this book frustrated the living daylights out of me. 

9. Antigone

Though it was for summer reading, I actually kind of liked Antigone! It was more of a positive neutral situation, but it was definitely readable and easy to get through. It’s a perfect reference to have for AP Lit or even AP Lang, and it’s also great to have on-hand if you want to sound smart.

10. Scarlet

For me, this was the least entertaining installment of the series simply because I do not care about Scarlet or Wolf at all. If you name a character ‘Wolf,’ I will not care about the plot of the book. I’m sorry, it’s instantaneous. Scarlet was collateral damage.

11. Call of the Wild

This classic wasn’t the worst or most confusing book I’ve ever read, but it was also insanely depressing. I liked the ending, but sort of not really? I can’t make up my mind. I don’t think I’ll ever watch the movie with Harrison Ford, but I’m sure he can survive the hit.

12. The Turnout

I got this book at Target thinking I finally found a Center Stage book replacement, but it was confusing and dark. If you’re into a more Black Swan type of psychological thriller that’s more about sibling-rivalry than competing for a role, this might be the book for you. I’m not the biggest fan of psych thrillers, so don’t take my word for it if that’s your thing.

***

Though this was a somewhat light list for my own personal rate of reading, it was a pretty solid summer of reading that ended abruptly as soon as the school year started. My classes are preventing blog articles, good reads, and 8-hours of sleep at night, but we’ll always have the books of the summer of 2022…