My Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Summer Reading List (so far) - by Jacquie Bosma

“Summer reading” comes with a lot of baggage.

A lot of people never got out of associating it with a long list of literary drudgery that you have to do before school starts back up in the fall (read Dostoyevsky when it’s my fun time?! you must be joking). And if you moved past that, you still might silo off reading to a Thing You Do Only When On Vacation. Everyone wants to write the book that’s a “beach read,” after all.


Speaking of the beach, if your algorithm is similar to mine, you might have seen this little gem pop up once a year as soon as Everyone And Their Great Aunt Carol starts in on how to get “beach body ready.”

That’s right, honeybunch: the beach is going to get whatever body you roll up with! You get that Vitamin D and sand in horrific places. (I side with Anakin on this one, sorrynotsorry. I don’t like sand. I’m more of a poolside girlie.) And just like there’s not one acceptable beach body, guess what? Any read is a “summer read” if you read it—gasp!—during the summer. So here are some of the books I’ve started my Summer Reading with. Stick around; I’ll also have a bonus recommendation for ya.

The Rules of Magic - Alice Hoffman

Despite the movie adaptation being adored across the board, apparently Practical Magic is a divisive book among readers? I actually read it before watching the movie (which, not going to boss you around, but please please please for heaven’s sake read the book first if you can), and I loved it. Critics of the novel say that there isn’t enough, well, magic in its pages. I personally kind of liked the subtlety of the magical element. It made the magic of the book, well, more practical.

The Rules of Magic is a prequel to the wildly successful Practical Magic and follows the generation of Owenses that came before Sally and Gillian. Set in the culturally tumultuous 1960s, The Rules of Magic takes the note from readers of Practical Magic’s sometimes-too-subtle nods to what it means to be an Owens and turns it into a compelling, rich story about identity, trauma, and the family bond knitting everything together. It was often a very sad story, but the compelling characters kept me turning pages.

Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke

If you’ve doomscrolled Booktok, you’re in a book club, or you’ve simply passed by the window display at your local Barnes & Noble, one thing’s for sure: people are talking about Yesteryear a whole lot right now. And for good reason, according to this humble reader.

The premise of Yesteryear is compelling from the start: a tradwife influencer wakes up one day in the bygone era of what she’s trying to commodify. As you might expect, Natalie is a grade-A narcissist, sociopathic, among lots of other diagnoses that I’d need a more suitable degree to accurately pinpoint. She’s the narrator, and she is awful. I won’t spoil anything here, but suffice it to say that while Yesteryear unsettled me and didn’t feel like the typical book I want to read, I can’t stop thinking about the book, its characters, or the multiple messages it communicates.

It’s worth the hype to read through at least once. And when you do, let me know. We’ll talk about it. There is SO MUCH to talk about.

The House of Eve - Sadeqa Johnson

I’m part of a book club where we actually read the books we pick each month. Sure, we eat well. We laugh and chat. But then we chat about the book we read that month, and those discussions are always so meaningful for me. The Fancy Book Club (because every book club needs a name) selects its books each month depending on the rotating host’s preferences, the short list of which we vote on as a group. This month, we selected The House of Eve as our June read.

With book club picks, I try to go in as blindly as I can. I don’t want to read a synopsis. I don’t even read the recommendations on the book jacket. For that reason, I wasn’t quite sure where The House of Eve was going at first, narrative-wise, but the dual POV of two Black young women living two very different experiences in post-WW2 America quickly began to dovetail into a story I could not put down. It broke my heart for more reasons than one. And it grieved me to know that, despite taking place over seventy years before present day, there’s a timeliness to The House of Eve that ought to grieve all of us.

So, what’s next on my TBR? I’ve got a July book for Fancy Book Club that features the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, but before I dive into that, I think I need a wind-down sort of escape after all of my heavy thematic content of the past three books. I’m currently reading Annie Knows Everything by Rachel Wood, a workplace romcom that was an earlier Book of the Month pick for me, and I’ve got The Fortune Flip by Lauren Kung Jessen on deck.

But if you, gentle reader, are in search of a debut novel to pad your summer TBR pile, have I got a recommendation for you:

Stage Mouse - Jacquie Bosma

If you’re the kind of person that watched An American Tail until you wore out the VHS or you kept blasting the Newsies soundtrack long before your high school production closed, or you simply think “Gangs of New York needed more theatre kid energy,” your summer reading list is in for a treat. Venture into 1890s New York through the eyes of Belle Malone, a shy young Irish woman who emigrates from Ireland to support her mother. What begins as a promising job in a textile mill quite literally goes up in flames, and Belle must pivot to working as a scenic painter for a small theater in the Bowery.

Along the way, Belle will discover that something more dangerous lurks in the wings, including a ghost from her past in Ireland. Will Belle be brave enough to push past her mousy reputation to do what’s right?

Whatever your reading pleasure this season, may you be blessed with hours of uninterrupted book time, a cold beverage, and a comfy place to sit while you read. Happy summer!

Jacquie Bosma wrote her first novel in a Dollar Tree notebook at age nine. (Not to brag, but it was kind of a big deal in her cul-de-sac.) She lives near Atlanta, Georgia with her wonderful husband, two fantastic sons, two boy cats, and a boy dog. Jacquie makes up for the lack of estrogen in her home by writing distinctly feminine stories that always carry a note of hope and always, always, always, a Happily Ever After. Learn more about Jacquie at jacquiebosma.com.