Summer Reads That Kept Me Up Waaaay Past My Bedtime

Plus a few podcast recs

Jul 10, 2025

Summer is for reading! Especially breezy, fun reads with heart. Here’s a few of the books I couldn’t put down.

PS You can find my whole list of Hey Eleanor book recs here— and I urge you to do your online book shopping from bookshop.org. It supports local bookstores, not our ol-buddy-ol-pal Jeff over at Amazon. He doesn’t need any more of our money.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I’m sure there’s a sect of readers who can’t stand Taylor Jenkins Reid books— she’s too mainstream, too popular, too successful. But I love her books, and I especially love the audio versions because Julia Whalen (the Beyonce of audiobook actors) reads many of them. TJR’s masterful storytelling weaves historical fiction with actual pop culture. Daisy Jones & the Six was inspired by Fleetwood Mac; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is sorta-kind based on Elizabeth Taylor.

Her latest book, Atmosphere, chronicles Joan Goodwin— an astrophysicist— as she becomes one of the first women accepted to NASA’s astronaut program (allegedly inspired by Sally Ride). Set in the 1980s, we get to watch Joan face sexism, family drama, battle the physiological and psychological challenges of training as an astronaut, and fall in love for the very first time. I loved this book, and the ending left me breathless. I mean, who is cutting onions in here?!

Read this if: You love strong female protagonists. You always wanted to go to Space Camp. You enjoy a love story that isn’t super cheesy or sexually explicit. You like when women win.

Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand

It’s summer, and that means Elin Hilderbrand novels go down as smooth as an ice cold kölsch. I read 28 Summers in June and loved the premise (two twenty-somethings fall in love on Nantucket Labor Day weekend, and decide to meet up every Labor Day for the rest of time— no matter their life circumstance), but wanted to strangle the characters for being BIG DUMB IDIOTS who are completely out of touch with their emotions. Whatever!

Hilderbrand totally redeemed herself with Golden Girl. At 51, Vivian Howe, a best-selling author who lives and writes about Nantucket (meta!) dies on her morning run in a hit and run accident. Before transitioning to that Big Island Retreat in the Sky, she’s allowed to observe her young adult-aged children for the remainder of the summer, armed with three “nudges” to help them navigate life without her. Cheesy? Kinda, but I fully enjoyed every page. Hilderbrand knows how to write relationships, and as a mother myself, I related to her drive to shield her children from the inevitable pain of life even when you know you can’t actually protect them from much.

Read this if: You dream of a Nantucket vacation. You know grief takes shape in different ways for different people. You sometimes think about your high school sweetheart. You would do anything for your kids.

The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki

Marjorie Post is an American icon, heroine, tastemaker, philanthropist…and you’ve probably never heard of her. But maybe you’ve heard of Post cereal (hello, Grape Nuts! I love eating kitty litter!), the company her father founded in the 1880s? The one she essentially ran for 60-some years after his death in 1914? And I’ll bet you’re familiar with the mansion she commissioned in 1924 for a cool $7M ($127M in 2025 money). It’s called Mar-A-Lago, and at the time, was the most expensive non-royal home to be built in history.

This is going to sound like a dig, but it’s not: Allison Pataki’s novelization of Post’s life reads like someone turned a Wikipedia entry into a 432-page book. But honestly that’s kinda what I liked about it?

The wealthiest woman in America for most of her life, Post’s is a true rags-to-riches story, filled with total extravagance (she purchased a significant amount of the Romanov family’s furs, jewelry, art and more from the USSR; her yacht, Sea Cloud, was the largest private yacht of its time and still sails today). But she also used her wealth, power, and influence for good, funding a U.S. Army hospital in France during World War I, as well as building and personally overseeing a soup kitchen during the Great Depression. We learn about Post’s four marriages, the stories behind her palatial estates, and her business acumen via prose that reads like a novel. I fully enjoyed it, and can’t wait to visit Hillwood— her home in DC that’s now a part of the Smithsonian— one day.

You think this is the most interesting man in the world? Ha!

She is the most interesting man in the world. RIP Marjorie!

Read this if: You love history. You’re on Team MacKenzie Scott, not Team Lauren Sanchez. You’re grateful for convenience foods, even though they are probably killing us. You enjoy a story about an outsider making it, against all odds. You’d like to know what Stalin, the Kennedy Center, the Boy Scouts, the Napoleon Diamond Necklace, and Bird’s Eye frozen vegetables all have in common.

Sunny Side Up by Katie Sturino

File this one under one of my favorite genres of books: Non-stressful, breezy reads. I don’t always need a page-turning thriller, or a romance with 248-pages of excruciating sexual tension. Sunny Side Up kept me engaged and rooting for the main character without breaking a sweat.

Sunny Greene is a thirty-something living her best life in NYC. Well, almost. Sure, she has her successful PR company. And yes, her style is perfection. And she has a lovely family and supportive friends. AND a great apartment, with two adorable dogs. But when her shit-bag of a sports podcasting husband leaves her, partially insinuating it’s because he’s ashamed of her weight, she starts to spiral into familiar self-loathing territory. Everything changes after a trip to Bergdorff’s swimwear department, where a “helpful” sales gal brings her to the dowdy, plus-size swim section. When Sunny gets sausaged into a suit she doesn’t even like in the first place, she decides to design her own line of swimwear. Cue montage set to Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out.”

I loved how this book both acknowledges that “body positivity” isn’t necessarily the goal. Instead, we ought to aim for body neutrality, where your body is just what it is, and you get to wear a sexy swimsuit, or a cool monochromatic set, and get to run a successful business and launch your own clothing company and have hot sex with your hot mailman at any size.

Read this if: You follow Katie Sturino and like her vibe (psst! She’s on Substack at

Lobby Coffee

!). You enjoyed Sex and the City (the OG, not this weird reboot). You always wanted to live in NYC. You love a love letter to New York and all its wonderful restaurants, bars, neighborhoods, etc. You relish witnessing a douchey man get what he deserves. You love a book about smart women who know their worth.

PS Katie recently launched a swimwear line with Kitty & Vibe and whyyyyyyyy is this suit sold out in my size?!?!

Listen to these podcasts (or else!):

Modern Love: “Why Boys and Men Are Floundering, According to Relationship Therapist Terry Real” Wow, this episode about men and feelings and relationships is a must-listen for… well… everyone?

Bone Valley - Season One: If you have a long drive ahead of you (or maybe a long, mindless project?), this podcast series about a wrongful conviction in Florida is absolutely gripping and infuriating.

Heavyweight: “Gregor”: We just re-listened to this episode about a man who leant a rare CD box set to his buddy in the 90s… and never got it back. Which would be rude all on its own, but it’s extra rude when you learn who his buddy is AND how much money he ended up making from samples used from said CD box set.

What are you reading this summer? Share with the rest of us!