July Beach-Ready Book Haul

The time is drawing near for me when my family takes their big yearly vacation, and this year we're going to Florida for a week. Therefore, I must stock up on reading material for the 12 hour long drive and for possible pool-side reading, right? At least that's my excuse for buying even more books in the past month, even though I was kind of on a self-imposed book buying ban. Oops! But hey, at least I tried right? Anyway, here are the books I bought in the past month to read on vacation (click on the titles to see full summaries on Goodreads):


The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped Off Hollywood and Shocked the World - by Nancy Jo Sales
I now consider my obsession with this story in general to be my current guilty pleasure. What I mean is, I can't get enough of it! I'm completely intrigued by how these fame-obsessed teenagers became the first ever successful burglary ring in Hollywood. And after seeing the Sofia Coppola movie, The Bling Ring, based on a Vanity Fair article by Sales, I had to buy the book and learn more about the story. I'm not one for non-fiction books usually, but I've already started this book and the amount of research and detail that went into Sales' account of the "Bling Ring" is mind boggling. Like I said, I can't seem to get enough of it! You can definitely expect a review on the movie and book sometime this month.

Unearthly - by Cynthia Hand
I read this novel about fallen angels (more or less) about a year ago after renting it from the library pretty much because it had a pretty cover. Yes, I admit to picking up books based on their covers (although this photo of it doesn't to the real thing justice). But I'm so glad I did because I ended up loving it. It become one of my favorite novels I read last year (among The Fault in Our Stars, The Book Thief, Divergent, The Maze Runner, and a few others). However, this is the only book of the series I've had the chance to read. I hope to pick up the next installment, Hallowed, soon, because I definitely consider this to be a great beach read.

Shadow and Bone - by Leigh Bardugo
I've heard mostly good things about this book in the book blogosphere, and I've been eyeing it for a while now. But recently they released it in paperback, thus making it more affordable for me, and I couldn't refuse (I'm somewhat of an impulse book buyer, can you tell?). Also, the only books I've read that were based in Russia, like this one, are Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and they were all for school, thus boring the living daylights out of me. This novel is different because a.) it was written in this century, b.) it's a dystopian thriller, and c.) it's not a required reading for any of my classes next semester, so I'm bound to enjoy it a lot more than Crime and Punishment (here's hoping).

Emma - by Jane Austen
I wanted to pick up this Austen classic after watching one of my favorite movies, Clueless (based on this novel), and I already own all of her novels in one giant bind up. However, I didn't want to be toting a huge leatherbound bind up just to read one book from it to the beach. So I went to a used bookstore and found a slightly battered edition to call my own. I think this might be one of Austen's longest novels she'd written, so it will be very interesting to see how far I get and how long it takes me to finish it.


The Summer I Turned Pretty - by Jenny Han
I bought this book for my younger sister as part of her graduation gift earlier this month, but I've heard mixed reviews on it. Some say it's the perfect fluffy beach read, and others say it jumps around too much and it's boring. My sister leaned towards the more negative side saying she didn't like the flashbacks and that she probably wasn't going to read the rest of the trilogy. Seeing as how we now own it, though, I thought I'd at least give it a try. It can't hurt to give it go, you know? The premise seems tame enough, too. It doesn't seem to require a lot of comprehensive reading, it's set at the beach, involves a coming of age story as well a teen love triangle. What else could you want in a beachy read?

That pretty much does it on my recent beach book purchases. Hope y'all have a great summer and relaxing vacations, whether they're poolside, porchside, or beach side.
Happy Reading!