what I read this summer
summer reading recap, 2024
2 min readAug 29, 2024
- There There, Tommy Orange — 9/10, so beautiful. I read it while traveling around the Pacific Northwest which, while not the same as the book’s setting in Oakland CA, added to the reading experience
- The Secret History, Donna Tartt — 8/10, I am drawn to anything in the dark-academia world and I thought this was a delight, I finally get the Yellowjackets/Secret History references now
- East of Eden, John Steinbeck — 9/10, loved this, especially the storyline following Cathy, who I pictured as a Pearl-MaXXXine-esque character, fun in a very dark way
- Gilead, Marilynne Robinson — 7/10, wanted to like this more but I found the characters less relatable, really lovely writing though
- Songs for the Open Road, the American Poetry and Literacy Project — 10/10, and by that I mean the experience of reading this slowly on a long road trip is 10/10!
- Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward — 9/10, loved this. especially in audiobook form
- Pachinko, Min Jin Lee — 8/10, better than I expected, I loved learning about a perspective I didn’t know anything about previously (the experience of Koreans in Japan)
- Erasure, Percival Everett — 7/10, I think seeing the movie first lessened the experience of this for me. but I loved the weird vignettes of writers and artists within the book, and the book-within-the-book
- How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, David Brooks — ?/10, not finished yet, but I already feel like a better person for having read part of it, so would recommend!
- The Years, Annie Ernaux — ?/10, also still in progress, but loving it so far
What did you read this summer?