A Sweltering Summer Reading List

This summer, despite it all, I’ve had lots of time to read. Here are my favorite picks, most of which are quite famous so you’ve probably read them. If not, here are some great reads to get you through this heat.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong’s most famous novel. I love his poetry, so it’s no surprise I liked this too. This novel is a memoir, a plead, a hand stretched out for healing and connection from a son to his mother.

The novel's strength is its viscera. The way he writes isn't so much descriptive as it is enveloping. He engages the senses. Just like his poetry, it's fragmented and atmospheric. You can see the dark shadow of trees at night, feel the summer heat. You know Trevor and Ma and Lan as people in all the ways that matter, without the belaboring that lesser writers would use. Vuong is masterful at weaving scenes.

I found myself yearning for the narrative though. That was my anchor. Because as beautiful and lyrics as the prose is, what I really gleaned from it were the relationships. The extended Tiger Wood metaphor was probably my favorite of it. Perhaps Vuong’s style works better in short form. I still enjoyed it.

I read this on a tablet but it's the sort of book you'd want a real copy for, so you could mark the sentences.

4/5 stars

Pachinko

This book is a sweeping, multi-generational tale of a Korean family living in Japan. If you've ever read any Khaled Hosseini books and liked them, you will probably like this. It weaves lives together in a very deft way, anchored on the family’s matriarch, Sunja.

It made me think a lot about how quickly Korea has changed in the past 100 years, although almost all of the book takes place in Japan. The characters struggle with their identity and their origin--in the sense that it is thrown back at them often, weaponized. For some, they think on it not at all, but they can never really escape it. For others, it consumes them.

At times, I worried this book was straying too far into Madonna/whore territory--that is, the female characters started to feel repetitively either brainy and polite or sexually promiscuous, never the two combined. As the novel went on, I think it corrected course (if it ever really went off course to begin with). It dealt with the lack of agency women have, especially in the past. "It's a woman's lot to suffer" really sums up the whole book.

This is clearly a work of massive love and labor on the author's part, and it deserves its praise.

4.5/5 stars

Song of Achilles

This book is infamous for being able to make just about anyone weep. It’s a retelling of the Iliad, and it loses none of its beauty. Miller weaves suspense like a master. You may know what happens in the Iliad, to Patroclus and Achilles, but you will still be wishing that they’ll escape the fates’ hands.

Honestly, this is now one of my favorites ever. Tender and stunning. It's been years since a book enthralled me like this. Something about it just aches summer. The way it brings images in your heads of touch, sound, and taste have stuck with me. I find myself remembering phrases from the book, floating around in the back of my head forever.

I listened to the audiobook which Frazer Douglas performed exceptionally well, but in doing so (plus some long library-wait-related breaks) I didn't well up with emotion like I would've if I'd read it word by word. Still just so, so incredible.

5/5 stars.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Another infamous book, this one for its Korean feminist themes. It’s controversial among a male population that’s growing increasingly anti-feminist.

The book follows Jiyoung, a young woman born in the early 80s, who grows up surrounded and assailed by misogyny. The protagonist’s life is, of course, a very Korean experience but I think women of any age and any background can relate to her.

Favoritism of brothers, sexual harassment, social pressure to fluff up men's egos or play along with misogynistic jokes, spy cams, humiliating dress codes, doctors ignoring my pain, invalidation, and infantilization. These are all things I've experienced too.

I thought I'd read this book as an exploration into more of Korean culture (my coteachers recommended it) but I found myself identifying with it in so many little ways.

There were a couple of moments where I had it put it down in rage—particularly the Atwood-ian ending, in which the doctor is ultimately unsympathetic to the traumas the women in his life go through. Nothing has really changed. Often, even the men in our lives who say they "get it" only do so long as it does not inconvenience them or threaten their power.

I would love for this book to one day be more of a time capsule than call to attention. My only criticism is that, as a narrative, it does sometimes feel stiff, carried along by the next cruel buoy that reflects what issue the author wants to spotlight. In that sense, it feels a bit strung together. Still, it’s crystalizing.

3.5/5 stars.

Mistborn

A fantasy classic that I’m just now getting to. This one has no rating because I’m only just finished with Act I (and now my library has taken it away, so so cruelly). However, I’m already enjoying Vin, the street urchin who discovers her magical heritage, very much.

The magic power system is creative without being overly complicated (a feat even deft authors like N.K. Jemisin struggle with). It’s grounded in the way that magic systems often struggle to be. But what’s more impressive is the way Sanderson is handling his protagonist’s trauma after a life of being a street urchin. It’s handling the mature themes well, without gratuitousness.

I’m excited to get it back and finish!

That’s all for my summer reading list. Have you read any of these? Let me know what you think below—but try to keep it spoiler-free.