It’s here, summer is officially in the building. Whether you’re thinking of taking it to the beach, lounging by the pool, hiking in the woods, or just chilling on the couch, we have BookCrushin’s list of must read books to keep you busy until Labor Day!
So without further ado, your quintessential summer reading list:
Ink by Amanda Sun
Category: Young Adult, Fantasy
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: June 25, 2013
I looked down at the paper, still touching the tip of my shoe. I reached for it, flipping the page over to look.
Scrawls of ink outlined a drawing of a girl lying on a bench.
A sick feeling started to twist in my stomach, like motion sickness.
And then the girl in the drawing turned her head, and her inky eyes glared straight into mine.
On the heels of a family tragedy, the last thing Katie Greene wants to do is move halfway across the world. Stuck with her aunt in Shizuoka, Japan, Katie feels lost. Alone. She doesn’t know the language, she can barely hold a pair of chopsticks, and she can’t seem to get the hang of taking her shoes off whenever she enters a building.
Then there’s gorgeous but aloof Tomohiro, star of the school’s kendo team. How did he really get the scar on his arm? Katie isn’t prepared for the answer. But when she sees the things he draws start moving, there’s no denying the truth: Tomo has a connection to the ancient gods of Japan, and being near Katie is causing his abilities to spiral out of control. If the wrong people notice, they’ll both be targets.
Katie never wanted to move to Japan—now she may not make it out of the country alive.
In The After by Demitria Lunetta
Category: Young Adult, Sci-Fi, Dystopia
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: June 25, 2013
They hear the most silent of footsteps.
They are faster than anything you’ve ever seen.
And They won’t stop chasing you…until you are dead.
Amy is watching TV when it happens, when the world is attacked by Them. These vile creatures are rapidly devouring mankind. Most of the population is overtaken, but Amy manages to escape—and even rescue “Baby,” a toddler left behind in the chaos. Marooned in Amy’s house, the girls do everything they can to survive—and avoid Them at all costs.
After years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope, a colony of survivors living in a former government research compound. While at first the colony seems like a dream with plenty of food, safety, and shelter, New Hope slowly reveals that it is far from ideal. And Amy soon realizes that unless things change, she’ll lose Baby—and much more.
Rebellious, courageous, and tender, this unforgettable duo will have you on the edge of your seat as you tear through the pulse-pounding narrow escapes and horrifying twists of fate in this thrilling debut from author Demitria Lunetta.
The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
Category: Young Adult, Dystopian, Science Fiction
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: August 20, 2013
It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.
But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city—Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly—as soldiers in their army.
Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.
The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
Category: Young Adult, Author Debut, Contemporary
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: August 27,2013
Golden boy Ezra Faulkner believes everyone has a tragedy waiting for them—a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. His particular tragedy waited until he was primed to lose it all: in one spectacular night, a reckless driver shatters Ezra’s knee, his athletic career, and his social life.
No longer a front-runner for Homecoming King, Ezra finds himself at the table of misfits, where he encounters new girl Cassidy Thorpe. Cassidy is unlike anyone Ezra’s ever met, achingly effortless, fiercely intelligent, and determined to bring Ezra along on her endless adventures.
But as Ezra dives into his new studies, new friendships, and new love, he learns that some people, like books, are easy to misread. And now he must consider: if one’s singular tragedy has already hit and everything after it has mattered quite a bit, what happens when more misfortune strikes?
Robyn Schneider’s The Beginning of Everything is a lyrical, witty, and heart-wrenching novel about how difficult it is to play the part that people expect, and how new beginnings can stem from abrupt and tragic endings.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke
Category: Young Adult, Author Debut, Gothic Horror
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: August 27,2013
You stop fearing the devil when you’re holding his hand…
Nothing much exciting rolls through Violet White’s sleepy, seaside town…until River West comes along. River rents the guesthouse behind Violet’s crumbling estate, and as eerie, grim things start to happen, Violet begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. Is River just a crooked-smiling liar with pretty eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something more? Violet’s grandmother always warned her about the Devil, but she never said he could be a dark-haired boy who takes naps in the sun, who likes coffee, who kisses you in a cemetery…who makes you want to kiss back. Violet’s already so knee-deep in love, she can’t see straight. And that’s just how River likes it.
Blending faded decadence and the thrilling dread of gothic horror, April Genevieve Tucholke weaves a dreamy, twisting contemporary romance, as gorgeously told as it is terrifying—a debut to watch.
Origin (Lux #4) by Jennifer Armentrout
Category: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: August 27,2013
Daemon will do anything to get Katy back.
After the successful but disastrous raid on Mount Weather, he’s facing the impossible. Katy is gone. Taken. Everything becomes about finding her. Taking out anyone who stands in his way? Done. Burning down the whole world to save her? Gladly. Exposing his alien race to the world? With pleasure.
All Katy can do is survive.
Surrounded by enemies, the only way she can come out of this is to adapt. After all, there are sides of Daedalus that don’t seem entirely crazy, but the group’s goals are frightening and the truths they speak even more disturbing. Who are the real bad guys? Daedalus? Mankind? Or the Luxen?
Together, they can face anything.
But the most dangerous foe has been there all along, and when the truths are exposed and the lies come crumbling down, which side will Daemon and Katy be standing on? And will they even be together?
The Distance Between Us by Kasie West
Category: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: July 2, 2013
Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she’s pretty sure they’re only good for one thing—spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother’s shop.
So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his interest won’t last. Because if there’s one thing she’s learned from her mother’s warnings, it’s that the rich have a short attention span. But Xander keeps coming around, despite her best efforts to scare him off. And much to her dismay, she’s beginning to enjoy his company.
She knows her mom can’t find out—she wouldn’t approve. She’d much rather Caymen hang out with the local rocker who hasn’t been raised by money. But just when Xander’s attention and loyalty are about to convince Caymen that being rich isn’t a character flaw, she finds out that money is a much bigger part of their relationship than she’d ever realized. And that Xander’s not the only one she should’ve been worried about.
The Historians by Trisha Leigh
Category: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: July 30, 2013
*If you could learn the identity of your one true love—even knowing you’d probably never meet—would you do it?*
Years have passed since refugees from a ruined earth took to space, eventually terraforming a new system of planets. Science has not only made the leaps necessary to allow time travel, but the process engineered a strange side effect—predicting people’s one true love.
The problem? If only one soul ever has been born, or will be born, that perfectly matches yours, the chances the two will exist in the same time and place are almost zero. It’s rare enough that the predictions have been reduced to a game, a parlor trick, and no one expects a happily ever after with their True.
*If you had the chance to meet your one true love—even knowing you couldn’t be together—would you go?*
Seventeen-year-old Kaia Vespasian is an apprentice to the Historians—a group charged with using time travel to document the triumphs and failures of the past—and can’t resist a peek at her long-dead one true love. Before she knows it, she’s broken every rule in the book, and the consequences of getting caught could be disastrous.
*If you could save your one true love from a terrible, untimely death, would you be able to resist?*
When Oz Truman, a fellow apprentice, discovers Kaia’s secret, he shows her the predicted trajectories that could result in her altering the history of ancient Egypt. They prove that if Kaia doesn’t ensure her True dies as he’s supposed to, the effect on the present will be catastrophic.
*Would you have the strength to watch them die?*
But when Kaia notices Oz popping up in historical archives where he doesn’t belong, she suspects he has a secret of his own—and the conspiracy she uncovers breaks rules worse than traveling to ancient Egypt to meet a boy.
If Kaia’s experience with her one true love has taught her anything, it’s that no alteration to history comes without consequences. The Historians trained her to observe and record the past, but Kaia never guessed she might have to protect it—especially not from the people she trusts.
The Theory of Everything by Kari Luna
Category: Young Adult, Contemporary, Humor
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: July 11, 2013
One part Libba Bray’s GOING BOVINE, two parts String Theory, and three parts love story equals a whimsical novel that will change the way you think about the world.
Sophie Sophia is obsessed with music from the late eighties. She also has an eccentric physicist father who sometimes vanishes for days and sees things other people don’t see. But when he disappears for good and Sophie’s mom moves them from Brooklyn, New York, to Havencrest, Illinois, for a fresh start, things take a turn for the weird. Sophie starts seeing things, like marching band pandas, just like her dad.
Guided by Walt, her shaman panda, and her new (human) friend named Finny, Sophie is determined to find her father and figure out her visions, once and for all. So she travels back to where it began—New York City and NYU’s physics department. As she discovers more about her dad’s research on M-theory and her father himself, Sophie opens her eyes to the world’s infinite possibilities—and her heart to love.
Perfect for fans of Going Bovine,The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The Probability of Miracles.
Earthbound by Aprilynne Pike
Category: Young Adult, Paranormal
Synopsis: Goodreads
Release Date: July 30, 2013
Love, fate, and power collide in this new series by #1 New York Timesbestselling author Aprilynne Pike!
Tavia Michaels is the sole survivor of the plane crash that killed her parents. When she starts to see strange visions of a boy she’s never spoken with in real life, she begins to suspect that there’s much about her past that she isn’t being told. Tavia will soon discover that she’s an Earthbound—someone with the ability to create matter out of nothing—and that she alone holds the key to stopping the Reduciata, an evil society that manipulates global events for its own shadowy purposes. Tavia will ultimately have to make a choice: to come into her powers and save the world from the evil Reduciata or to choose free will and a love of her own.
Well are you excited for these upcoming summer reads? Did we miss any that you are over the moon excited for?
