Ten Books that Take Place in Summer

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's theme is books that have a summer vibe. I'm not sure, but I think that's intended to be lighter books that are more like "beach reads," which isn't my usual reading fare. However, I did pick ten books that all take place during summer, so hopefully that will give you some possible reads for this summer!

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The first line is "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York." We see the protagonist's mental health deteriorate over the course of the summer while interning at a fashion magazine.

2. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Rucker Blakeslee's wife dies in June, and barely three weeks later he marries a much younger woman and shocks this small Southern town. The scandalous summer is seen through the eyes of his grandson.

3. Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
Having just graduated from high school, Emi is already working on movie sets in Hollywood as a set designer, but this summer is going to teach her about a lot more than designing sets.

4. The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield
An annual family reunion in Arkansas is marked by dark secrets and tragedy in this beautiful, heartbreaking book.

5. I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios
Skylar has finished high school and just has to survive three months of a minimum-wage job before she can leave her small town for art school. But then her mother loses her job, a coworker comes back from Afghanistan minus a leg, and Skylar doesn't know what the future holds anymore.

6. The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork
Pancho moves into a group home planning the murder of his sister's killer, but he's asked to help care for D.Q., who's dying of cancer. What life lessons will he learn over the course of the summer?

7. Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews
Meg's not happy to be spending her summer back in her hometown trying to serve as bridesmaid to three different brides. Then, someone turns up murdered — can she help figure out who and still pull together the pieces for three perfect weddings?

8. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
In this quiet book, a girl and her grandmother spend the summer on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Through a series of vignettes, we get a sense of the time and place as well as the characters. Both of them can be difficult at times, but they care deeply about one another.

9. Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee
Tash's web series goes viral, and over the course of the summer she has to figure out where her priorities lie — and how to navigate a possible romance as someone who's asexual.

10. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
Dimple can't wait to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers, and can't believe her parents agreed to it. But, oops, they maybe neglected to mention that the boy with whom they've arranged a marriage for her is going to be there too. Suddenly the summer's gotten a lot more complicated!

What other books are set during a summer?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Trespasser
Five years ago I was reading: Gilead, The Tale of Desperaux, and What If?
Ten years ago I was reading: The Book of Three