Summer means BOOKS!

Sunrise was at 5:11, sunset will be at 9:11.  Sunrise is early.  And the lightening of the sky? Earlier.  The birds, especially if the flight path is especially low?  Earliest.  I swear they (the birds and the planes) start at 2:30 am in and over our neighborhood.  I wonder if they get confused by the streetlights- Do the trees shake when the planes rumble over?  Who knows.  They are just awake and noisy.

Solstice is tomorrow.  I just checked the sunrise/sunset calendar and it shows that we have 4 extra seconds of daylight today, less than a second tomorrow, and 5 whole SECONDS LESS on Saturday!  Wow!  Not even a day to get used to the idea that winter is on its way.

So, with summer on the doorstep, here are three fun young adult books for those looking for getaway reads.

The Summer of No Regrets, by Katherine Grace Bond (Sourcebooks).  The perfect summer read for younger young adults. There's romance, mystery, and cougar cubs.  What could be better than that?  Brigitta, a secret celebrity blogger (although she's pretty snarky about them), is not having a good year.  She's been dumped, her dad's changed toward her, and she has to spend the summer helping her parents promote their spiritual retreat. When her handsome new neighbor, Luke, is attacked by a cougar, she saves his life and her summer suddenly takes a different turn.  Luke (a dead ringer for bad boy star Trent Yves) and the cougar cubs they find and then care for become her secret from everyone, especially her star-crazed best friend, Natalie.

Brigitta's relationship with Luke is a little rocky-she's not sure if everything he's told her isn't all a lie.  But she likes him, he's funny and caring, and she's tired of being the good and reliable Brigitta of the past.

Summer of No Regrets has plenty of issues to make it a meaty read with a healthy dose of romance and tension, knotty problems with friends and family. It's a good one for ages 12 and up. (Available now, $8.99.)

Perry's Killer Playlist, by Joe Schreiber (Houghton Mifflin).  This is the sequel to Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick and you really NEED to read the first one first.  Hysterically funny, perfect for summer reading.  ARCEC is all about crazy spies and assassinations and fast cars, music and bands and being yanked out of anything at all resembling your normal life.  PKP is what happens later!  Perry has gotten into college, he's on a European tour with his band, and no one's tried to kill him in months.  Unfortunately, Gobi is still in his life.  Showing up in a shower of bullets and screaming tires, the two of them are OFF in a flurry of international murder plots, love and torture. All of that makes for an exciting and funny book.  I love recommending these books to teens who really just want something fun to read, nothing too cerebral.  There is sexual content so ages 13 and older.  (Both books are available now.  $16.99 each.)

The Moon and More, by Sarah Dessen (Viking).  Well, it just isn't summer without a new book by Sarah Dessen and I get so very excited about every single one of them.  There was some discussion at the store about her books, 11 so far, and how alike they all are and could there really be anything new?  My response was YES!  I LOVE her characters, I love that the conflicts are real ones that most girls have to deal with (attempted rape, abuse, family dysfunction, money...).  Her main characters are smart, funny, intense, able.  They study, they aim high, they rely on themselves to get where they want to be.  They are the girls at 17 that WE were at 17:  Bookish teenagers who know the world is so much bigger than the ones we're in and that we are going to take it by storm, so go on and get out of the way.

Okay, so The Moon and More is standard SD fare:  Girl in small town, happy with her boyfriend, the summer before college, when big city boy with big dreams comes and recruits her (Emaline) to work on his documentary film about a reclusive local artist.  A look at how her future could unroll leads to questions about her comfortable feelings about the life she leads now.  Loved it.  This may be the summer I re-read all her books.  (Available now. Ages 12 and up.  $19.99.)

Okay, I hope your summer unfurls in a flurry of paper and words and the time to enjoy them all.  Come on by Eagle Harbor Books (you get to take the FERRY!) and see me!  It's a nice little vacation from the big city.


(No recompense received for reviews.)