Six Books of Summer

By AUDREY YAEL SMITH | Junior Reporter

At the start of the pandemic in March, my sixth-grade English teacher at Paul Revere told the class to look for silver linings. Quarantining and social distancing has been incredibly tough and trying, but one silver lining I have found has been having more time to read. These are some of the books I enjoyed reading this summer:

In “Turtles All the Way Down” by John Green, a sixteen-year-old girl named Aza struggles with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She has “thought spirals” and constantly worries about getting infected with C. diff.

“Looking for Alaska,” also by John Green, is a novel about Miles, a junior at a boarding school in Alabama. There, Miles falls for a wild and impulsive girl named Alaska.

“The War That Saved My Life” by Kimberley Bradley was an incredibly moving story about Ada, a ten-year-old girl whose cruel mother never let her leave their apartment because of Ada’s twisted foot.

“Brave New World” is a futuristic science fiction novel where humans are genetically modified and live in a world where everyone belongs to each other. When John, a savage (uncultured person), is introduced to the World State where the “civilized” population lives, he is horrified.

Like “Turtles All the Way Down,” “Every Last Word,” written by Tamara Ireland Stone, shows what it is like to have OCD. The main character, Sam, keeps her OCD a secret and feels alone until she makes a different group of friends in “Poet’s Corner.”

Because I loved the movie “Mean Girls,” I decided to read Micol Ostow’s “Mean Girls: A Novel.” This was a fun read and I am looking forward to seeing the play once we can go back to the theater.

Reading a good book can relieve stress and, during this pandemic, that is particularly important.