 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. I hope you're good today! We're going to talk about all of my summer book recommendations. So these are the books that I think are without a doubt perfect for summer. Perfect for summer. Like the books I would recommend. You read the summer, get them on your TBRs. It's a pretty self-explanatory video. We don't need to discuss it anymore. Should we speed it up a little bit? I woke up this morning and like the sun was shining for once. The sun was shining, blue skies, and then I sit down to film and there's a massive gray card in front of me. It is miffing me off somewhat. I really thought I was about to be like sunbathing, like looking so summery. No, look at it. Hang on, I'm going to show you. This is actually not funny. Look at that! Excuse me, why are you so rude? Anyway, but before we get any further in today's video, I want to thank the sponsor for today's video, which is Skillshare. So I'm your Skillshare for years and years. I've loved it for years and years. Way before I had my channel, I think it's such a great place to develop creative skills, whether it's something you like are already kind of good at and want to develop further, or whether it's like a skill you've literally never touched, but you're like, I'm going to give her a go. I'm going to give her a go. Basically, it's this online learning community with classes for every, every, every, every skill or hobby you can imagine. Like literally everything. They have this, I bet you go try it. Like literally test it, search for a skill that you think is not going to be on there. There'll be a class for it. There'll be a class for it. I kid you not. You can learn languages, photography, illustration, cake decorating. I mean, look at this. They have a cookie decorating class for beginners. Excuse me? What? I love it so much. I'm going to do that class when I go back home. So if like me, you want to use this summer to develop new skills and hobbies like cake decorating, I'd really recommend you go and check it out via the link below. And the first 1000 of you to use the link will have a free premium membership to Skillshare. Honestly, you have nothing to lose. Go click the link, go get a free premium membership. Why not? It's free. And just give it a go. Have a little peruse, have a little searchy, searchy and see if there's anything that tickles your fancy. There's no ads. They're always launching new classes. And once the membership ends, it's actually very affordable under $10 for a month. So give it a go. I've always loved Skillshare for years and years. I think it's such a great place to learn new things. So I'd really recommend it. Okay, books. Let's talk about the books. Now this was very, very hard to not make these all contemporaries. Summer is contemporary season, like without a doubt. But I was looking at all the books I've read. Why are literally all Miss Susan Thrillers set in the winter? They love November. November is thriller season. Summer, you're only getting contemporaries. Like that's it. No, it's true. It's true. Okay, first things first, I'm not going to speak about it for long. Don't worry, we'll get past this one quick. But you need to read Heartstopper this season. You need to read the graphic novel series Heartstopper. I know this cover is wintery. This one kind of is set in the winter. But volume three, the one before this is set in the summer. And on the whole, it's a summery read. This is a graphic novel series with Nick and Charlie, who are two boys that form in love and love each other. And I'll put the other covers here, particularly volume three, because that is the one that's like super summery. But this is just lighthearted, full of love, full of joy. I just posted a reading vlog for this one, volume four, which I'll link if you want to see it. But it's just so soft, so hot. He fills my heart with warmth. Like genuinely, the best summer read, you could just literally go sit in your garden with the stack of all four and just read them and just have the best time. Like genuinely, I wish probably wishes I'd never read them to this summer. I could read them again. I'm probably going to reread them at some point because I love them so much. And they just bring me so much joy and they're just so easy to read. And I just love them. But genuinely, if you want a joyful, happy, story full of love, it's a graphic novel, won't take you long to read. It's just pictures. Read it. Next, I'm going to recommend this isn't like content. Well, it's kind of, it's like fabulism, magical realism kind of thing. I'm going to recommend You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno. Now this was an absolute surprise book. I was not expecting to love this as much as I did. Basically, it's about a girl, I think her name's Magpie. Am I right? Yeah, I think her name's Magpie. She has been through a lot of trauma. She's been through a lot of really difficult stuff lately. And this is struggling. And she kind of makes up this magical world. Is it called near? I don't have it with me, so I can't check the details. But she makes up this magical world in her head in this notebook. And then she finds out that she can actually enter this world through her garage, not a garage, like shed door. Like her shed opens up into this world. It's very strange. It's very strange. It's the perfect amount of like fucked up. It's like the perfect amount of weird. It's such a fast-paced moving book. There are trigger warnings for like sexual assault in this. It is a heavy hitting book, but it's like, it's not afraid to get angry. I really admire how it's not afraid to get angry and really show that anger like unapologetically. I think so often girls in fiction who have gone through trauma are expected to be sad when that's not the only valid response to just going through something difficult and anger is equally valid. And I just love how this book wasn't afraid to go there. I loved how weird and wacky it was. And I'm pretty sure it's set like in the summer. Like I remember her and her friend like going to their swimming pool in the back garden a lot. So it definitely has that summer vibes. I feel like it's hot with anger and with heat and everything. And I loved this. This was such a surprise. Next let's talk about a middle grade. And that is me, my dad and the end of the rainbow by Benjamin Dean. Oh my god, this is so cute. This is so cute. This is so cute. Okay. So this is about a boy named Archie and his parents have just split up. They've been arguing a lot and he doesn't really understand why. And then one day he sees a pride leaflet fall out of his dad's pocket and he decides that he's going to go to this thing called pride in London. He hopes that that's going to fix him and his dad's, not fix him and his dad's relationship, but he just feels like it's not quite right because there's been change. So he just hopes that this will kind of put everything right in his eyes between him and his dad. And so it's the story of him learning about sexuality in the LGBT community. It's beautiful. I think this is such an important middle grade for kids to have out there. But I think it's also such an important book for everyone of every age to read. It's just beautiful. Like it's just a heartwarming story. The album's amazing song to song. I can't stress it enough. Going to Pride nearer the end of the book is such a fun experience. We have drag queens, we have parades. You know when you read a middle grade and it makes you feel like a kid again, I think that's something this book does so well. So I'd really recommend it set in summer. Just a joy filled book. So another book I read recently and think would be perfect for summer. I don't know if this actually occurs in summer. I don't know. But I think it's a really great summer read is The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hero Arakawa. I, oh lord. I don't want to cry over this book. I don't want to cry over this book. I cried a lot at this. I cried a lot. Now people don't recommend usually like heart breaking books for summer. But I think this is the perfect book to like read in a day in the garden. You get a little, little cry. Little cry. I don't think you could not cry on reading this. But it's like short and such a quick easy read that I think is perfect for summer. So basically we're following a cat and him and his owner traveling around Japan. This is translated from Japanese because his owner needs to give him away and we don't really know why. And so the owner is going around to some of his friends and we're basically hearing about his owner's backstory. But then the cat, then we'll switch to the cat's perspective and the cat will be like just pissed off about something. The way this perfectly captured a cat's like pissed off perspective was everything. If you have cats, if you love cats, you have to read this. Listen to what I have to say because I'm right. Like I never knew how much I wanted to read from a cat's perspective before until now. Until now. It was so good. I just every, I said in that video, I'll link the reading vlog where I cried and went into detail about this. I said in that video how badly I want every book to be written from a cat's perspective. Like every book, I need like a companion novel from a cat like watching this and being like Too much drama for me. Too much drama for me. So listen, you may not want to cry in the summer. I think every season is crying season if you want it to be. And it is heartwarming at the same time as being heartbreaking, but I can just imagine sitting in the garden, the wind, the sun on me and just like just give me a little read. So yeah, definitely pick this up if you love cats. Next one may, okay, it may take some people off guard, but Catherine House by Elizabeth Thomas. I haven't spoken about this book for a while. I loved it. Now before we talk about this, no, this is like one of the most almighty books ever. You either love it or you hate it. It's weird as fuck. Like it's really unhinged. It's very strange, but I loved it. Our main character gets to attend the school called Catherine House, which is really prestigious, but you have to go there for like three or four years and you're not allowed any contact with the outside world during that time. You're completely isolated and shit starts occurring. There's there's no way to explain this book. It's such a weird book, but basically shit starts going down and it's weird. It is sporadic. It's confused as a book. And it's such a weird writing style. But I think if you want a bit of like a challenge this summer, read Catherine House because this does obviously encapsulate many years. So it goes through the seasons, but I have a distinct memory of the role that like heat played in the summer sectioned in this book and how claustrophobic this book feels reminds me of that. The book feels very hot and claustrophobic. So listen, you may not want that as a summer vibe, but like it can't all be contemporary to you guys. It can't all be contemporaries. Sometimes we have to switch it up a little, a little bit of something for the summer. What did she say? Something fun for the summer? Something fun, something for the summer time, something for the girls, so you know, get ready and party. One of the strange books I've ever read, I do want to reread it. It just did something. It just went there. It really went there. It really tried its best. I love Catherine House. If you're looking for a weird book, give it a go. Don't be afraid. Like you may hate it or you may absolutely be obsessed with it. And that's just the risk you've got to take. And then the last book I would recommend for the summer is with the fire on high by Lisbeth Attavedo. This was, I think, the only contemporary in my favourite books of last year. And it's such a beautiful story of this girl who is a teen mum. And it's about her figuring out her responsibilities to that was also trying to like live the life that she wants to live as a teenager in high school. She loves to cook and there's this cooking class that she wants to take but it involves this trip away. And so it's just about that and how that conflicts with the way that her life has had to become. Food plays such a big role in this book. Like if you like food, this book is gonna make you hungry. I loved her love of cooking and how that was explored. It, Lisbeth Attavedo, her other two books are like poetry format. Is it verse? Ren in verse? I'm pretty sure. I always get them mixed up and people always make fun of me. Listen. It's almost hurtful to me to watch her be so dumb. But this one is like told more as a traditional book and I just felt like you've got so much time to spend with the characters and learn about them and really become attached to them. Lisbeth Attavedo's writing is beautiful. It has this lyricalness to it and I loved it. So maybe I feel like this is the least popular of Lisbeth Attavedo's books. The Poet X, I would say is the most popular and I feel like people don't read this one enough. So it's perfect for summer. I think I read it like around the time of last summer and it just has this lightness and this fun to it whilst also discussing difficult topics. So there we have it. That is the books I'd recommend you read this summer. Let me know what is on your summer TBR, what you're planning to get to this summer and also if you have any recommendations for books that you think are perfect to read in the summer because I always want the recommendations. We know this. If you've gotten to the end, comment a sunshine emoji and I will see you very soon in another video. Bye!