July Greetings from Bookshop Santa Cruz

Every summer like clockwork, customers start coming into Bookshop to ask booksellers for their recommendation for the perfect summer read. For some, a perfect summer read is a book that takes you to a faraway destination where you'll be heading on this year's vacation. For others, it is a dog-eared used mystery that you don't have to worry about sand ending up in the binding.  
After finishing a few books of different genres and scopes this summer, I've decided that my idea of a perfect summer read is a Young Adult (YA) novel. Ever since Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, the idea that adults will read books primarily written for young adults is a given. However, not until this year did I realize that the best time to read these books is in summer. For good reason. First, good YA novels are youthful in spirit--they bring you back to a place of playful exuberance that immediately conjures up great summer memories. Although YA novels can deal with important issues like bullying, race, and family dysfunction, they do so by bringing you back to the raw emotions felt in adolescence--a wonderful break from the complex psychological analysis that tends to dominate our adult lives. YA novels can be read quickly, but they grab you from the start--the most basic example of a great page turner. Whatever the reason, YA novels just fit summer. Luckily for us, there are so many great ones to choose from.

My YA pick for this year is the novel Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. Set in 1986, Eleanor is a big, red-headed girl whose home life makes the Hunger Games seem like summer camp. Park is a half-Asian kid who skirts the edges of the social hierarchy mainly by staying out of the spotlight. Against all odds, Eleanor and Park fall in love, and in doing so, we are transported to those first moments we've all experienced falling in love. It is sweet and funny and intense and emotional and, like summer itself, you never want it to end.

As the writer John Green wrote in his New York Times review of the book, "Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it's like to be young and in love with a book." You can't get a better summer read than that.