We talk about the perfect summer beach reads. Just picture sitting with your feet in the hot sand, the ocean laid out in front of you, the salty wind blowing gently across your face… ahh, summer vibes, am I right??? That’s the feeling these books will give!
The books talked about this episode are:
- Where the Roads Leads Us
- Where the Rhythm Takes You
- Counting Down With You
- The Summer I Turned Pretty
These books reads are so good, and we can’t wait for you to listen!
The Cold Open
Anna and Celine start the podcast by telling their embarrassing stories from their teenage years from the summer.
Celine tells of the 4th of July when she was 15, newly discovering and feeling confident about her body changes—feeling weird in a swimsuit—trying to be a cutie. Celine’s parent’s friends were invited to a summer barbeque bash, and they had boys her age. At the party, there was a volleyball game going on, and she decided to play.
Anna interjected at this point, explaining, “Oh gosh, I’m just picturing this right now in my head. Celine thinking. Oh, volleyball, they will see how graceful and athletic I am like, oh, I am game.”
Celine continues to her embarrassing story. So she’s playing and trying to show that she’s good at the game. Because she didn’t make it to her 7th grade volleyball team because she didn’t know how to spike, so; for the next year, Celine practiced how to spike, and she could spike very well. So 15 year old her is like, it’s my time. Celine is there, and she has her set, and she SPIKED that ball right into the LADY who was HOSTING and gave her a BLACK EYE!!!
Anna then tells of her embarrassing teenage summer story.
She starts by telling her about where she grew up, in Virginia. When she was about 16-17 for two years, she and her friends would go camping. She then name-drops guy whose grandma’s house they would go camping. His grandma lived in the backwoods of Virginia, so it was perfect for camping. She retells of one specific summer “I remember one summer… I can’t believe I am saying this… we all were like, let’s all go skinny dipping in the lake. So we all went skinny dipping in the lake.”
Listen to the full Novelbound podcast
“Let me just pull from my bank of embarrassing memories”
Celine
Beach Reads!
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Where the Road Leads Us
by Robin Reul
Jack is on the verge for leaving for college, but before he does, he wants to track down his estranged brother, Alex and find some closure in the wake of their father’s death. Meanwhile, Hallie has just found out some upsetting news about a friend in Oregon, and she has a small window to go see him before it’s too late.
Jack and Hallie are practically strangers. They shared a class together years ago and haven’t seen each other since, though they have more in common than they’d ever imagine. And when fate puts them into the same rideshare to the bus terminal, it kicks off an unconventional and hilarious adventure that may lead them to their own true selves…and maybe to each other.
Where the Rhythm Takes You
by Sarah Dass
Seventeen-year-old Reyna has spent most of her life at her family’s gorgeous seaside resort in Tobago, the Plumeria. But what once seemed like paradise is starting to feel more like purgatory. It’s been two years since Reyna’s mother passed away, two years since Aiden – her childhood best friend, first kiss, first love, first everything – left the island to pursue his music dreams. Reyna’s friends are all planning their futures and heading abroad. Even Daddy seems to want to move on, leaving her to try to keep the Plumeria running.
And that’s when Aiden comes roaring back into her life – as a VIP guest at the resort.
Aiden is now one-third of DJ Bacchanal – the latest, hottest music group on the scene. While Reyna has stayed exactly where he left her, Aiden has returned to Tobago with his Grammy-nominated band and two gorgeous LA socialites. And he may (or may not be) dating one of them…
Inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Where the Rhythm Takes You is a romantic, mesmerizing novel of first love and second chances.
Counting Down With You
by Tashie Bhuiyan
A reserved Bangladeshi teenager has twenty-eight days to make the biggest decision of her life after agreeing to fake date her school’s resident bad boy.
How do you make one month last a lifetime?
Karina Ahmed has a plan. Keep her head down, get through high school without a fuss, and follow her parents’ rules—even if it means sacrificing her dreams. When her parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, Karina expects some peace and quiet. Instead, one simple lie unravels everything.
Karina is my girlfriend.
Tutoring the school’s resident bad boy was already crossing a line. Pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace Clyde does everything right—he brings her coffee in the mornings, impresses her friends without trying, and even promises to buy her a dozen books (a week) if she goes along with his fake-dating facade. Though Karina agrees, she can’t help but start counting down the days until her parents come back.
T-minus twenty-eight days until everything returns to normal—but what if Karina no longer wants it to?
The Summer I turned Pretty
by Jenny Han
Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer—they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along
Want More?
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