I am not, by nature, a summer person. My heart has always belonged to autumn and all of its inherent nerdiness--plaid, books, bouquets of number two pencils, red-orange leaves and cool air. I have come up with two explanations for this: 1. I am a geek. 2. I grew up in the deserts of Southern California, where the average summer temps hovered somewhere around 120-125 degrees fahrenheit, and have a pavlovian response to equate summer with misery. Both are possibly true. I have spent my life, for the most part, dreading months July to September. (But not June. Because June is lovely.) It certainly did not help that I was a blonde, fair-skinned, freckle-faced kid, possessing no melatonin whatsoever. As an adult, I'd taught myself to tolerate summer, but never quite made the leap to actually liking it. Maybe it was the aversion to boob sweat?
All was going well until May of last year, or the time I now like to refer to as, 'The Summer Everything Fell Apart and I Learned To Love It Anyway.' My husband found himself unexpectedly out of work and my own work-hours plummeted. There was panic. There was worry. There was a mortgage. If you're a masochist, you can read a bit more about that time here. It was a miracle we managed to stay afloat. But let me tell you. There was a little side effect to all that not-working that nobody really tells you about (besides being broke), and that was TIME. And it was WEIRD. For two people used to working non-stop, the thought of days upon weeks upon months of pure, unadulterated time stretching through the summer made us slightly lightheaded. I hadn't read much Y.A. at that point, but as part of my quest to learn to enjoy the hot, idle months ahead, I decided it would be the summer of the Teen Girl Novel. It was the best decision ever.
You know the books I am referring to. They are usually pink. They involve road-trips. Or maybe bicycles. There might be an ocean in the background. (Okay, there is always an ocean in the background.) It is likely you have passed over them in favor of pastel-free titles with more literary merit. I always did. But like any other sub-genre, there are knock-offs and there are gems. And once you find them, the gems deserve a place in your Y.A. collection just as much as dystopian fantasy or vampire tales. As we get older, we get too-cool-for-school, and we forget that at one point in our lives, Judy Blume made us believe that it was possible for one summer to change everything. Despite all of our hang-ups and fears and aspirations, anything could happen. Such was the hope of our teenage selves. And me, last year.
In the world of summer novels, I think it's safe to say that Sarah Dessen makes everyone else look like a hack. Do not be deterred by the cotton-candy covers. She is an amazingly subtle writer, with richly developed characters and spot-on dialogue. Her earlier work is not quite as strong, but her latest, Along for the Ride, is one of the best. Auden is a socially awkward girl who has always taken comfort in academic success, but when she finds herself living in a small beach town with her novelist father, ultra-girly step-mother, and their newborn baby, she is forced to question the very foundations on which her world is built. There is also the minor problem of not actually knowing how to ride a bicycle in a town obsessed with bikes. Dessen tackles some mighty large topics here. There is plenty of romance, but it has a kind of heft and weight and meaning that you don't normally see in teen lit. She manages to walk that fine line between the profound and the lighthearted with grace, and I can't think of a better book to curl up with on a hammock, or on the beach, or planted directly in front of a window a/c unit.
The Summer I Turned Pretty, by Jenny Han is a wisp of a book that caught me completely off-guard. Han has an amazing young-reader/tween novel, Shug, but I'd heard nothing about her move to Y.A. last year. The cover art is somewhat misleading, because the title is partially tongue-in-cheek. I can't say that I ever experienced a summer of magical prettiness (just the usual braces, acne, and aforementioned pasty skin), but she does an excellent job of making it seem possible. Sixteen year old Belly (short for Isabel) measures her life in summers, having spent every summer of her life at a beach house belonging to her mother's best friend, Susanna, and her two older sons. Belly just happens to be in love with one of them. The elusive one. The one who still thinks of her as a kid. The author does a brilliant job of examining the complexities of growing up, of love and friendship, want and need, the past and present, and the harsher realities of life are set against the backdrop of one truly idyllic summer. You can practically smell the briny ocean and feel the salt sticking to your skin. (A word of warning: a sequel was released last month, but it does not live up to the magic of the first.) It will make you want to hop in the car and head to the nearest coast. My apologies to those who live one too many states away from a coast.
Rounding out the list is Amy and Roger's Epic Detour, by promising new Y.A. author, Morgan Matson. In some ways, it reminds me of an early Dessen novel, and I can't wait to see where she goes from here. As you've probably guessed, it is about a girl, a boy, and a truly epic road trip. This is made more complicated by the fact that Amy Curry has not driven since being involved in a car accident some months previous. It might sound heavy, but Matson brings a delicate touch and a wicked sense of humor to a potentially dark situation. Amy and Roger are, for the most part, strangers (their parents are friends), but the circumstances that bring them together and the romance that unfolds are strangely believable. The writing is a little shaky at first, but after the first few chapters, Matson really hits her stride. The characters are as quirky as they are wounded, and the text is peppered with visual souvenirs from their travels (receipts, playlists, drawings, poems, photographs, etc.), which should hold the interest of teens with shorter attention spans. (Or me.)
There are many others I would love to include, but my-lanta this post has gotten long. I'll have to leave the rest up to you. I'm still on the lookout for some guy-friendly summer reads, so if you can think of any, please send them my way! (The new Louis Sachar, The Cardturner, looks promising, but I haven't cracked it open just yet.) Is there anything you guys would include? Do you have any summer favorites from your childhood or teenage years? It is 50 degrees and pouring here. I need something to keep me going until the sun comes out two months from now.
