The best summer books for a breezy day at the beach

We both devoured this perimenopausal fever dream of a novel as soon as it came out in May, just in time for everyone we know to add it to their book club summer reading lists. This book is a sexy, funny, poignant, and sometimes truly wackadoodle coming-of-age story about a fortysomething wife and mother raging against the dying of the light.

July excels at describing (and exploding) tiny moments within conversations, particularly between men and women, the gulfs between what we intend to say and what we wind up saying. Following the journey of the unnamed protagonist, a semi-famous artist at the midpoint of her life, helped us understand how a culture that values youth and beauty above all else can become a horror movie for women. In other words, it did what the best books do: it helped us feel seen.  

We loved getting a glimpse into the complicated mind of July’s main character, a multimedia artist from Los Angeles, struggling to be her true self in a world of artifice. Never has there been a more thrilling tale about a woman who decides to abort a cross-country journey and hide in a fleabag motel 30 minutes from her home.

Beyond the unusual plot, we loved the relationship between the narrator and her best friend, Jordi, a sculptor who was patient and kind and always gave the narrator good advice, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. 

Come for the tea in the Condé Nast cafeteria, and stay for the depth. This book is a dishy and raw memoir of growing up in an Italian family in working-class Philly, rising through the ranks of the New York magazine world during its last hurrah in the early 2000s, scaling the corporate ladder–until the author realized that her greatest ambition was to overcome her workaholism.

This was the most honest book we’ve ever read about the realities of being a woman in the business world, stripped of all that irritating #girlboss gloss. It’s fast-paced and, at times, heartbreaking–but not such a downer that you can’t enjoy it poolside with an Aperol spritz. And Romolini is so funny, bright, and self-aware; we rooted for her through it all. 

Even though it came out more than 40 years ago, we had to include this one, the perfect chef’s kiss of a summer read, complete with recipes. The romcom master’s first novel is based on her breakup with her husband Carl Bernstein, the renowned Washington Post Watergate reporter, who had an affair when Ephron was several months pregnant. Instead of moping around, Ephron spun her tragedy into gold: a hilarious novel with a triumphant ending.

As the main character, Rachel tells her therapist (who has asked her why she always turns everything into an amusing story): “Because if I tell the story, I control the version. If I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.”

Equally heartbreaking and light on its feet, this 1983 novel is our favorite revenge fantasy. Although the film adaptation, starring Meryl Streep, doesn’t really hold up, the novel still slays. And there’s no better vinaigrette recipe than the one on page 177: mix two tablespoons of Grey Poupon mustard with two tablespoons of good red wine vinegar, then whisking with a fork, slowly add six tablespoons of olive oil until the vinaigrette is thick and creamy.

“Even now,” the narrator remarks after discovering her husband’s affair, “I cannot believe Mark would want to risk losing that vinaigrette. You just don’t bump into vinaigrettes that good.”

We both devoured Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s last book, Fleishman Is in Trouble, and the wonderful TV adaptation of the same name. So, when we saw that she was writing another one, we both not only hit the preorder button but reached out to her publisher to get advanced reader copies. The book doesn’t come out until July 9. Still, we’ve both already read it and can confidently say it’s a delightful summer read about a wealthy Jewish family, the Fletchers, grappling with grief, repressed trauma, and the sudden slipping away of their family fortune.

The book grabs you instantly with a violent kidnapping and then jumps forward and back in time to explore the psyches of each of the Fletcher children as they process what has become of their family in the wake of their grandmother’s death. And wait until you discover what the “Long Island Compromise” is. 

We loved how familiar it all felt. Rachel grew up in Long Island, in a town called Roslyn, a place not so different from the fictional town of “Middle Rock” that Brodesser-Akner creates here. (Lauren grew up not far away in New York City.) But even if you’re from a place far away from New York, you’ll get the whole vibe.

Much like she did in Fleishman, Brodesser-Akner describes people in unforgettable ways: a minor character “had to his name about four hundred total strands of greasy hair.” At the same time, a more major player in the drama had so much Botox that she “lost the plot on what a human face was supposed to look like.” With characters like these, we can’t wait to watch the TV adaptation.

We have both been huge fans of Adelle Waldman since she came out with her whip-smart romantic satire, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P, around a decade ago. Her follow-up, our last pick, was stunning to us, not only because it's so good but because it's inspiring to see how a writer doesn't have to get cornered in by the "brand" she unwittingly establishes when she publishes her debut.

This book is set a world away from the Brooklyn coffee shops and house parties that the Nathaniel P. literary hipsters frequent; it all takes place in a big box store in upstate New York called Town Square, which may as well be Target. 

It makes you chuckle, think, and feel, largely due to its well-researched content. Waldman immersed herself in the world in which her new book is set, taking a job at Target while she was writing it. What we found most striking is how Waldman serves up timely, political fiction that reads like a juicy 19th-century novel.