Summer REreads

Sometimes I start to feel overwhelmed by the amount I consume. Music, podcasts, books, television, movies. All the things I have running twenty four-seven to ensure I don’t actually have to, you know, think about stuff too much.

This lifestyle poses multiple issues, and right now the one I’m concerned with is mental space. What I mean is the amount of me I actually give to the stories I’m reading. I want to really take them in.

Pre-blogging, I used to reread books all the time. This was partly a money thing, yeah, but it was also a healthy activity, I think. To relive the joy a certain story produced or rewrite your relationship with it altogether.

I like the way that different mes read in different ways.

So with that in mind, I present a few of the YAs that were regular companions of my teens. I think it might be time to introduce them to 23-year-old me.

Becoming Bindy Mackenzie – Jaclyn Moriarty

Bindy Mackenzie is the smartest – and kindest – girl at Ashbury High. She likes to share her knowledge of common teen anxieties and offers lunchtime advisory sessions in a relaxed setting (the locker room). But then Bindy discovers that, despite all her hard work, NOBODY LIKES HER! It’s time to banish benevolent Bindy – and release ruthless Bindy instead.

Bindy records every moment of her new rebellious project – from The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie to extracts from her essays. But her scrapbook is also the key to a bizarre myserty – with Bindy herself at the centre. Only her friends can help her now. If only she had some.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist – Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Nick’s just seen the girl who dumped him walk in… with a new guy. What else can he do but ask the strange girl next to him to be his new girlfriend for the next five minutes?

Norah would do anything to avoid conversation with the not not-friend girl who dumped Nick… and to get over the Evil Ex whom Norah never really totally dumped. What else can she do but answer Nick’s question by making out with him?

With one electric, unexpected kiss, the five-minute couple of Nick and Norah set off on an unchartered adventure called the “first date” that will turn into an infinite night of falling in and out (and in and out, and maybe in and maybe out) or love. Theirs is a first date of music, laughter, heartache, confusion, passion, taxi driver wisdom, and a jacket named Salvatore. And of course a killer soundtrack.

As Nick and Norah wander through the middle-of-the-night mystic maze of Manhattan, they share the kind of night you want to never end, where every minute counts and every moment flickers between love and disaster.

13 Little Blue Envelopes – Maureen Johnson

If your free-spirited aunt left you 13 little blue envelopes:

Would you follow the directions? Would you travel around the world? Would you open the envelopes one by one?

Inside envelope 1 is money and instructions to buy a plane ticket.

Inside envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat.

Inside envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist.

Because of envelope 4 Ginny and  a playwright/theif/man-about-town called Keith go to Scotland together, with disastrous – though really romantic – results. But will she ever see him again?

Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it’s all because of the 13 little blue envelopes…

This Lullaby – Sarah Dessen

Remy always know when to give a guy “the speech” – right after the initial romantic rush, but before anything gets too serious. She’s had her fair share of boyfriends, and she’s learned all there is to learn from her mother, who’s currently working on husband number five. So why is it that Remy can’t seem to dump Dexter? It can’t be his name. It can’t be that he’s messy and disorganised. And it certainly isn’t that he’s a musician – just like Remy’s father, a man she never knew because he left before she was born. Could it be that Remy’s romantic rules to live by don’t apply anymore?

The Truth About Forever – Sarah Dessen

A long dull summer stretches ahead of Macy while her boyfriend Jason is away at Brain Camp. Days will be spent at a boring job in the library, evenings will be filled with vocabulary drills for the SATs, and spare time will be passed with her mother, the two of them sharing a silent grief at the traumatic loss of her father.

But sometimes unexpected things can happen – things like the catering job at Wish, with its fun-loving, chaotic crew. Or her sister’s project of renovating the neglected beach house, awakening long-buried memories. Things like meeting Wes, a boy with a past, a taste for Truth-telling, and an amazing artistic talent, the kind of boy who could turn any girl’s life upside down. As Macy ventures out of her shell, she begins to wonder if it really is better to be safe than sorry.