Light fiction, part 3

In this crazy time of coronavirus self-isolation, I'm starting to get requests for light and funny books to read.  So it seemed like the perfect time to bring you a blog post on just that topic.  I have also seen various articles about books that are about life during/post-pandemic, but although I love a good dystopian as much as the next person, who wants to read about that right now?  It's hard enough to tune out from the news and/or ignore your kids long enough to find a moment to read, so something light and funny seems like a much better way to go!

Light fiction/vacation reads, volume 2

Both before and since I've had a blog, people ask me for book recommendations all the time.  I'd say the category of books I'm asked to recommend most often is light fiction, often to read on vacation.  Early on I wrote posts on both what to read on vacation and on light fiction, and I've also written about summer-themed books.  Since it has been a while, and since Memorial Day weekend is about to come kick off the summer season, seemed like a good time to suggest a few more books for your light vacation reading consideration!

Here are my latest recommendations:

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld - This modern day re-telling of "Pride and Prejudice" was one of my top 10 books of 2018.  It combined Curtis Sittenfeld's knack for bringing flawed yet sympathetic characters to life with Jane Austen's proto-chick lit plot.  So much fun to read!  (Bonus recommendation - if this book spurs your interest in reading more "Pride and Prejudice" re-tellings, you can also check out Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal which sets the P&P story in present day Pakistan; I started reading it on my winter vacation this year.  Not as good as "Eligible" but it was a fun read.)

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgenstern - Another book from my top 10 books of 2018, and I actually read this one on my 2018 summer vacation.  This is one of those chick lit books with heart, about an American college student abroad who falls in love with the fictional prince of England.  It was a perfect vacation read, light and fun and I couldn't put it down.  And I'm super-excited that apparently a sequel to it will be coming out in 2020!

Class Mom by Laurie Gelman - This was such a funny book, kind of a comedic satire of modern mom life about a mother of two older kids who reluctantly becomes the class mother for her youngest's kindergarten class, and it includes her snarky e-mails to the class.  If you've ever been a class mom or PTA volunteer, and/or rolled your eyes at overenthusiastic e-mails from those people, you will relate to this one!  A sequel to this one, "You've Been Volunteered," comes out in July and I can't wait to read it!

Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Not sure this one exactly fits the "light fiction" bill - Taylor Jenkins Reid's excellent earlier chick lit books really are lighter than this one.  But it is  definitely a book that benefits from reading it quickly and  therefore would make a good vacation book since you're more likely to have time to read it!  Plus it's my number one book so far of 2019.  It's written in the unusual format of an oral history, but of a totally fictitious 1970s band.  I absolutely adored it - you can read my 5 star review for more.

Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win by Jo Piazza - I read this novel last summer and really enjoyed it.  It's about a well-off female executive from humble beginnings who leaves her Silicon Valley life behind to move back with her husband and small kids to the small town in Pennsylvania where she grew up and run for Senate against the racist, sexist good old boy who has held that Senate seat for many years. Although it's written in a breezy, almost chick-lit style, it's actually a thought-provoking book with a lot to say about politics, marriage, and feminism. 

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That being said, I know not everyone wants to read contemporary women's fiction on vacation.  I personally like to read a mix of genres on my vacations, and I've written several posts on what I read on various of my vacations since starting this blog (see here, here, here, and here.)  You can also check out my top 10 lists both past and present, and my posts on various specific genres that interest you.  Or hit me up for a personalized book recommendation!

What I Read On My Winter Vacation

I came back yesterday from a wonderful week in the Bahamas with my family and our close family friends.  And, as has become a tradition on the blog, I'm going to share with you what I read while we were on vacation!

Me reading poolside

Jen's Top 10 Books of 2018

I'm very excited to share with you my 10 favorite books that I read in 2018!  I read a record amount of books in 2018, so this really is the cream of the crop - and it was SO hard to narrow this list down!  The top 5 were pretty easy, but narrowing down to the remaining 5 was a real challenge.  So I'm also happy to tell you that in the coming weeks you can look for "best of the rest" post(s) highlighting some of the other books I loved in 2018!

Anyway, for many many years - dating back to a time when I barely used the internet (1999!) - I have been compiling a list of my ten favorite books read in the year just ended and sharing with my friends, first by e-mail, then by facebook, and starting last year, on this blog.  It's not necessarily books published in the year I make the list, just books I read that year.  Here's my list for 2018, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

The Royal We - Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel
Force of Nature - Jane Harper
Queen of Shadows - Sarah J. Maas
The Clockmaker's Daughter - Kate Morton
Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld
What You Don't Know About Charlie Outlaw - Leah Stewart
Other People's Houses - Abbi Waxman
Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
The Female Persuasion - Meg Wolitzer


Traditionally, I used to just send around a list with no further comment on the books.  But now that I have more space, I want to tell you more about the books - first a little bit about each book itself, and then some general comments on the list as a whole.  Though if you've been reading this blog regularly, I think you have actually heard about most of these books in one post or another.  And I would love to hear what everyone else thought of these books, and what your favorite books of 2018 were!

Read on for more:

What I Read on My Summer Vacation

We came back yesterday from a lovely week in Cape Cod.  So in what is becoming a tradition for this blog, I'm going to tell you all about what I read on vacation (and what the rest of my family read too).  I love to read all the time, obviously, but vacation reading is especially enjoyable - isn't there just something nice about reading by the beach or pool, especially when you have nothing else pressing to do?

Jonah reading

Summer-themed books

Back in May, I wrote a post on summer reading, focusing on books that were being published in the summer of 2018.  (And if anyone's wondering, so far I've only gotten to 2 of the 10 books I mentioned in that post since I keep getting distracted by other books!)  But writing it also got me thinking about other summer-themed books which I've read in the past.  So, now that we're in hot and sunny mid-summer, if you're looking for some good books set in the summer in summery destinations, here are some suggestions!

What I Read on My Weekend Away

This past weekend, thanks to the generosity of my parents who came to my house to stay with my kids, Dan and I had a lovely long weekend away without kids!  People seemed to enjoy my post about what I read on my winter vacation, so I thought you all might also be interested in hearing about what I read on this mini-vacation.  Amazingly, I read (most of) 3 books from Thursday-Sunday!  Luckily for me, I am married to someone who has a compatible idea of what vacation should entail - pretty much minimal activity and total chillaxing.  ;)  Sure, we also swam in the pool, did a little walking around the resort property, got massages, had some great meals, etc. - but we also spent lots of time just reading!

Just one bookshelf in the Library cottage at Winvian

All the rooms at the resort where we were staying are themed.  I'm sure it does not come as a surprise to you that we stayed in the Library cottage!  The picture here is the view from the living area to the bedroom - and that's just one of many bookcases in the room.  The books were certainly an odd assortment.  Most of them seemed to be quite old books, many from the 1930s and 40s - I'm assuming that they were sold/bought in giant lots just for the purpose of decorating.  Interspersed throughout were more recent books that were presumably left behind by previous guests.  I noticed several I have previously read myself  - "All the Missing Girls" by Megan Miranda (enjoyable thriller); "The Address" by Fiona Davis (enjoyable historical fiction); "Fates and Furies" by Lauren Groff (overrated literary fiction); "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith (even more overrated literary fiction).  There was also lots of old Agatha Christie which I had read back in my teenage years.  And a 1947 Bowdoin College yearbook, randomly enough!

What To Read This Summer

As the weather starts to warm up (intermittently, that is), I'm thinking about what I'm going to read this summer.  I'm going to highlight some books that either were recently published or will be published this summer (May through August), and which sound like they'll make good summer reading.   For the purposes of this post, summer reading excludes anything that sounds too heavy or overly literary, but includes books that are either set in the summer or that sound like fun, juicy, reads.   Below you'll find some books that hopefully will fit the bill - a few books I've recently read, and other recent/forthcoming books that I'm hoping/planning to check out this summer.  Dates in parentheses are publication dates.

GCBC: Red Sparrow, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and the Assistants

My friend Sarah and I have a book club composed of just the two of us, which we call GCBC, short for Grand Central Book Club.  Since for various reasons we have had to reschedule our last few lunches and therefore were unable to discuss our books at the actual Grand Central in NYC, we bring to you once again our conversation on the books we have been reading, conducted by e-mail and then edited into this post!

Today, we're discussing 3 books we've read over the past few months:  (1) "Red Sparrow," by Jason Matthews, a spy thriller about a young male CIA agent and a young female Russian agent who end up being assigned to spy on/recruit each other; (2) "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli, a young adult novel about a gay teenage boy who is not yet out to his friends or family, only to an anonymous fellow high school student on the internet whose identity he does not know; and (3) "The Assistants" by Camille Perri,which is kind of a chick lit/satirical novel about the assistant to the CEO of a media empire, who somewhat accidentally ends up in a Robin Hood-esque expense account embezzlement scheme.

Chick Lit

Following up on my recent post on light fiction, there's a whole genre I left out of that post that is generally pretty light and not too depressing, though some books definitely have their darker subplots - chick lit.  Some people take issues with the term "chick lit" but to me it's not an insult, just a descriptor of a genre.  They're usually books about women in their 20s and 30s where the main plot is about love and/or finding yourself, and they're written in a pretty light style that no one would describe as heavy literary fiction.  Then there's the related genre I would call "contemporary women's fiction" which perhaps includes chick lit as well.  But to me, there's a fine line between the two which is a little hard to define. There are definitely some writers that straddle the line too, where the books they wrote when they were younger are more chick lit, but the books they have written later have a more contemporary women's fiction vibe to me.  But for the purposes of this post, I'm going to concentrate on more chick-lit-y authors, other slightly more serious contemporary women's fiction will have to wait for another day!

Anyway, although I read less chick lit now than I did when I was younger, I still love it so much that I can't limit myself to just naming a few favorite books.  So I'm going to go ahead and profile some of my favorite authors instead.

What I Read on Vacation

I returned home last night from a great week in Mexico with my husband and kids.  I've written before about recommended vacation reading, so I thought this time I'd tell you all about what I read on my vacation!

Yup, that's me reading on the beach!

Light Fiction

My latest request for recommendations was for books that are light and not too depressing.  Erika asked me for recommendations falling into this category after spin class and I was so tired and sweaty I seriously couldn't think.  But even once I cooled off, it actually took longer to think of what books fall into this category than I thought it would.  I read plenty of light fiction, the question is how to define "not too depressing."

For example, I usually recommend Liane Moriarty and Jojo Moyes to people looking for light reading as I did in my post on vacation reading, but though they write with a light touch, there are also lots of heavy topics addressed in their books - death of loved ones, domestic abuse, etc.  Every book has to have some dramatic conflict to make it interesting, so all too often books involve some element of sadness either in the plot or the main character's backstory.  And I for one love a good cathartic fiction-inspired cry, so I don't mind some sadness even in a light book.  So, I kept considering and rejecting books, but ultimately came up with a few that seem light and charming and, hopefully, not too depressing!