Three books that moved me this summer

When I think about summer reading, I generally picture fun, light-hearted novels in faraway places; a vacation in a book. But as a mood reader, I tend to pick up whatever piques my interest at the time, which would explain why I spent all of June reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. This 800-page Western is the complete opposite of my classification of a summer read, but it worked for me at the time. Last month I read What is the What by Dave Eggers — another opposite of a summer read. Both of these books moved me in ways I’m still processing and will likely continue to process for a very long time.

But I’m not here to talk about them because I’ve already done that. Between those two un-summer books, I read two that fit right into the category. They both delivered on the vacation-in-a-book part and they’re both lingering, but not in an annoying way like the cold I’ve been fighting.

Then, because there are no rules for my wayward summer reading, this week I read a campus novel, which would make for a good fall read but I didn’t feel like waiting until then. These three books, similar in tone (funny, sarcastic) but vastly different in plot moved me this summer:

Vera Stein is Fine by Julie Murphy

I judge a book by the amount of time I spend thinking about it after I’ve finished it. There are times when I’ll read a book and think I’m having just an okay time, but once finishing it I realize I miss being with the characters. To me, that’s a mark of a good book. Vera Stein, the protagonist of this romcom, stuck with me long after finishing.

Vera Stein is Fine is about Vera, a 40-year-old who quits her job working for a flashy Hollywood guy (who she was kind of dating but who didn’t give her what she deserved) and, left with no other choices, has to move in with her grandmother at Starlight Palms, a revered retirement home for Hollywood’s elderly actors and industry professionals. While there, Vera runs into Elias Buckley, an old college acquaintance who she drunkenly wed in Vegas one night (which was exactly as long as the marriage lasted).

Pushed up against swinging seniors (the Starlight Palms elderly are living their best lives!), her new job as activities coordinator at the retirement home, and forced proximity to someone she tried to forget from her past, Vera course-corrects all the years she spent trying to fit into a life she now realizes she never belonged in.

Vera is quirky and relatable. She’s a curvy redhead with a lot of past trauma and all the insecurities to go with it. I loved the juxtaposition of Vera placed in this mid-century modern / flashy bright lights / Palm Springs world.

Let’s Not Go Overboard Here by Erica Hendry

This book is hysterical. It takes on a tone that I’ve recently learned I love: humorous and easy-going in personality and serious in plot. Serious things happen but the character is so funny and weird and has no filter, so readers get to go on a hilarious journey with her as she pushes boundaries in the most cringe ways possible.

The copy on the front cover speaks for itself: This is a story about a definitely dead girl, a possibly dead girl and a living dead girl. All aboard.

My attention was captured before even opening the book. The story follows Mel, a pop culture obsessed woman who is mourning the death of her best friend, Ari. Mel’s employer enforces a vacation because she’s gone looney trying to distract herself at work and it’s clear she needs some time away. She fills her two weeks off by saying yes to her friend Vish, who has asked her to join him on a yacht trip in Greece chartered by the tech company he works for.

Pop-culture obsessed as she is, Mel keeps feeling like she’s in an episode of Below Deck — until things get weird. While on board, Mel notices some bizarre behavior between the three co-founders of Vish’s company, which includes potential foul play with the one female founder, Freya. As Mel tries to figure out where Freya has disappeared to, she’s forced to confront Ari’s death and the fact that Mel couldn’t save her. But maybe she can help Freya.

This book is funny, luxurious, and way darker than I predicted. I loved it.

The Obsessed by Lizzie Buehler

I’m a little more obsessed with the cover of this book than I am with the story, but it moved me nevertheless. The Obsessed is about Astrid, a young woman fresh out of a four-year relationship who is getting her PhD in comparative literature at Harvard. Her ex-boyfriend has an ex-girlfriend named Sofiya, and Astrid has long been obsessed with her (to the point that her ex-boyfriend put a moratorium on talking about her). Astrid is also obsessed with an author named Sofiya, with the same Russian spelling, who wrote a novel that Astrid finds to be highly relatable. In fact, she realizes in her conversations with a new match on Hinge that she’s living a life quite similar to the life of the protagonist in that novel.

The Obsessed gives Elif Batuman Ivy League vibes. I made this conclusion early on (specifically when reading a text conversation between Astrid and her new love interest) so I was not surprised when I read the acknowledgements and the author says the conversations in the book are based off of real conversations she had with Elif Batuman.

Historically, I’ve enjoyed the super heady elite education discourses you see in campus novels and dark academia. For some reason though — and this is no fault of the author — I found the uppity conversations to be tired. Or maybe I was tired. But at one point I just could not get into the discussions these Harvard PhDs were having. In comparison to the asinine crap I talk to my friends about (I’m more like Vera and Mel) the characters come off as straight-up royalty. Maybe this is a mark of my evolving reading tastes.

Either way, I flew through the book and thought about it when I wasn’t reading it. As I said above, that’s a mark of a good book to me. If you’re into reading conversations between extremely intelligent people who do research for fun, you’ll enjoy The Obsessed.

Questions for you:

• What have you been reading this summer?

• Do you tailor your reading to the seasons or are you more of a mood reader?

• What books are you planning to read this fall?

Thanks for reading! Love, Kolina

- What are you reading? What are you underlining?
- What I’m reading: Alan Opts Out by . I love it so much. She’s one of the funniest writers out there.

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Thank you to Avon, Grand Central Publishing, and Putnam for these books. I am so grateful!