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Just Beachy: 8 Must-Read Novels for Your Summer Vacation by josie

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lookingformelong by josie
Kristen Hannah's new novel is about hitting rock bottom, and with the help of those around you, making a new beginning.

Kristin Hannah’s new novel is about hitting rock bottom and making a new beginning.

With Memorial Day behind us, summer is unofficially here! Check out these new books to stash in your beach bag or download on your e-reader, from thought-provoking literary works to lighter reads.

And the Mountains Echoed (Riverhead Books, 2013) by Khaled Hosseini. I was excited to read the latest from Hosseini, who wrote The Kite Runner (Riverhead, 2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead, 2007). (Reading the latter book made me eternally grateful that I was born a woman in America instead of Afghanistan). Mountains is a series of emotionally devastating stories of an intersecting group of people, starting with a devoted young brother and sister, and moving on to a wealthy couple and their chauffeur, a doctor and finally a pair of Afghan emigrants in America. The stories move from Afghanistan, to Paris, San Francisco and the Greek islands, bobbing and weaving from the 1940s to the present day. While I didn’t love this novel as much as Suns, I appreciate Hosseini’s considerable gifts as a storyteller and even more so as a guide to the mysterious world of Afghanistan.

Traps (Knopf, 2013) by Mackenzie Bezos. Novels that create intersecting lives seem to be a trend. This story, beautifully written and constructed by the wife of Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos, follows four dramatically different women whose paths converge unexpectedly and in life-altering ways: Dana, a tightly wound security guard; Lynn, an older woman running a dog rescue in a remote Nevada town; Vivian, a teenage prostitute with twin infants, and Jessica, a movie star in hiding. Each of the women is intriguing in her own right, trapped by her own fears and frailties. Every woman in this tale is slowly revealed and healed over the course of this short but powerful novel.

The Woman Upstairs (Knopf, 2013) by Claire Messud. This tale of Nora Eldridge, a 42-year-old single woman who feels she’s done everything right only to be invisible to the world — the titular “Woman Upstairs” — begins with a ferocious roar. I found the first 30 pages riveting, piercing and real. It’s a short book about Nora’s angry awakening from the stupor of her life, but it’s not always a quick or easy read, because of the way it makes you stop and think about your own life. But it is so worth it. I’m going back to read Messud’s previous book The Emperor’s Children (Vintage, 2007).

Someday, Someday, Maybe (Ballantine Books, 2013) by Lauren Graham. This is my favorite light summer read, by the star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, who also has a BA in English literature from Barnard College. I pictured Graham as novel’s protagonist, a young wannabe actress named Franny Banks struggling to make it in New York City in the 1990s. Franny has a tendency toward talking jags, is frequently funny, klutzy and confused, and is very true to life. I particularly loved Graham’s insider observations on the irrational, cutthroat world of show business.

Inferno (Doubleday, 2013) by Dan Brown. No doubt, this latest offering from the author of The Da Vinci Code (Anchor, 2003) and Angels & Demons (Pocket Books, 2000) will be the hot thriller of the summer. The much-anticipated book, which follows Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon on another quest to save the world, is woven around clues from Dante’s epic poem and is set in Florence, Italy. Let the chase begin!

All You Could Ask For (William Morrow, 2013) by Mike Greenberg. This book follows three privileged women touched by breast cancer and has received a lot of buzz because it was written by a man; Greenberg is the co-host of the ESPN radio show “Mike and Mike in the Morning.” Greenberg does a very good job of writing in a woman’s voice, although I found the book difficult to follow at first since it weaves quickly among the stories. After that, it was intriguing, but ultimately depressing.

Fly Away (St. Martin’s Press, 2013) by Kristin Hannah. I was prepared to dismiss this chick lit title (and I like chick lit — a lot), so I was pleasantly surprised by this story that kept me coming back for more. The novel is a follow-up to Firefly Lane (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009), which introduced Tully and Kate to each another as teenagers and to the reading audience, who followed the pair through the novel’s 30-year span. (But you don’t need to read it to enjoy Fly Away — I hadn’t). In this book, Kate has died young, leaving her family emotionally shell-shocked and adrift. Tully, an ambitious narcissist abandoned by her mother, tries to keep her deathbed promise to keep Kate’s family together, but she fails miserably. It’s a story of hitting rock bottom, but with the help of those around you, getting up again and making a new beginning

Looking for Me (Pamela Dorman Books, 2013) by Beth Hoffman. This engrossing novel by the author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (Penguin Books, 2010) centers around 36-year-old Teddi Overman, who stole away from a difficult childhood on a Kentucky farm at the age of 18. In spite of making a satisfying new life for herself in Charleston, SC, Teddi is haunted by visions of her brother, Josh, who went missing at the age of 17. Always holding out hope that she’ll find him, Teddi goes back to Kentucky to confront her family’s past and to give herself peace.

Before the release of her bestselling debut, Hoffman shared how a near-death experience and a comment from a stranger compelled her to pursue her childhood dream of writing a novel in her VIV Moment. VIVmag is giving away five copies of Looking for Me; to enter, simply fill out this form by June 30!

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