Friends of GTG: What are you reading this summer? (Vol. 3)
Guest Jensen McRae shares her summer reading list.
Jensen McRae is a singer-songwriter who has likely soundtracked your most recent breakup (or your next!) with her wistful, witty ballads. When I heard her song Massachusetts on Tik-Tok, I wrote a whole scene in Too Much around it. She’s also an incredible writer with her own Substack, and- as befits a poet of her stature- a discerning and voracious reader too (plz note that her reading slump is still pretty impressive.)
I've been in a bit of a reading slump recently, BUT I have read a lot of great books in the last couple years that come to mind as great summer reads, even if they're not traditional beach read fare.
The Idiot by Elif Batuman - my all time favorite book, read first at age 20 in 2018 and reread at least once every year since. Coming of age story of first-generation Turkish-American Selin, attending Harvard in 1995 and discovering email and language and what it means to know other people.
The Guest by Emma Cline - I tore through this book two summers ago, it is not technically a thriller but it made my heart race as Alex, the protagonist, pulls off increasingly precarious cons to preserve her place among the wealthy Hamptonites with whom she's found herself summering.
Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley - mysterious forces cause Lola, a 30something New Yorker, to run an ex...and then all of her exes. I was underlining beautiful sentences every few pages. Great to read after a breakup or just because! It's so fresh and original.
I love Jensen McRae's summer books. I particularily loved The Guest. I would also add Hurrice Girl to this list, which shares the same sensibility, edge, style on the page. Said, of course, by the author of the novel.
I just read Marie Rutkoski;s new novel Ordinary Love which I loved. It's still how amazing how an author can creat characters who are so real to me, who I care about how so much. I cared so mcuh about Emily in a abusive marriage. I could recognie the tricks of her husband, which was more than uncomfrtable, and was sucked into the romance when Emily is reunited with her ex Gen Hall. Who is the coolest.
The idiot and the guest two of my absolute favorites. Just ordered a fairly honorable defeat by Iris Murdoch which feels like it might live in the same realm as those 2.