Top 6 Reads for a Rainy Summer

This summer has not being very good at sun shining and warmness and general summeryness, but it has got the whole raining business down. Rain rain rain and storms too. Also cold, so cold. I live in Glasgow, Scotland so I suppose it's to be expected, however I thought I'd gather a list of good rainy summer reading. These books set the perfect mood for rainy reading in the long daylight hours. Perfectly suitable for reading on that *one* sunny day too! In fact on Monday it was a scorching 25 degrees and I read in the park with actual bare legs. And today, Wednesday, has brought the heaviest, most movie like rain I've seen. So I know what I'm talking about when it comes to rainy summers. Without further ado, here are 6 (ok 7 because I added a bonus one and didn't want to make it a top 7 for some reason!) of my reading recommendations for a rainy summer:

Wild Song- Janis Mackay

Wild Song by Janis Mackay, is a beautiful novel set in Finland. Niilo is a 13-year-old boy who is sent off to live at a young offenders centre on a little island due to his thievery and general bad behaviour. Niilo has to overcome his fear of the sea, with the help of a kind councillor and a seal friend. Perfect rainy summer reading, where you can imagine yourself swimming off with the seals and learning to find your own wild song. You can find my original review here.

Pond- Claire-Louise Bennett

Pond is a collection of short stories and essays by Claire-Louise Bennett. Beauty, wisdom, whim, and humour are found in the mundanity of a quiet life in an old cottage in a small town. Claire-Louise Bennett's writing is beautiful and full of much better words than I could possibly muster. Here are some beautiful words about watching a storm from the bath, which makes for perfect rainy summer reading:

"And then, from there, it was possible, unavoidable really, to listen to the storm going around and around, and I knew it was an old one that had come back- it seemed to know exactly where it was and there was such intimacy in its movement and in the sound it made as it went along and around and around. Yes, I thought, you know these mountains and the mountains are familiar with you also."

Maybe read Pond in the bath while it rains outside- especially if your bath is next to a window! My full review of Pond is here. 

I Capture the Castle- Dodie Smith

From the iconic opening sentence, "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink" right through to the end, this wonderful novel is evocative and charming and is the perfect rainy summer read. Cassandra is seventeen and lives in a tumbledown castle with her family, who is living in poverty due to her father's inability to write a follow up to his first successful novel. She writes about family, falling in love for the first time, and the rich potential suitors who come into their lives and shake things up. I suggest perhaps reading this book sitting in the kitchen sink, especially if that sink is by a window with a view to the summer rain outside. 

Spellbook of the Lost and Found- Moira Fowley-Doyle

Spellbook of the Lost and Found is a wonderful and magical book about the havoc wreaked by the titular spellbook, found in an old oak tree. The setting is wonderfully evocative, with all the closeness and tension of the small town, the dark and magical nooks and crannies of the old forest, and the eeriness of the abandoned housing estate. There is a real sense of stormy summer weather, and in fact I read this book by the fire in a little cottage by the sea in June, while the wind and rain battered the windows. I reviewed Spellbook last month, you can read the full review here.

Aurabel- Laura Dockrill

Aurabel by Laura Dockrill is the follow up to Lorali, a fish out of water mermaid tale from 2015. We're back in the sea two years after the events of Lorali. The politics of the underwater world, the Whirl, are becoming complicated and complex after Princess Lorali's departure to live on land. This book is set under the sea and it doesn't get much more rainy than that! Crack open a window and you'll really feel like you're under water.

Riverkeep- Martin Stewart

Should I stop going on about this book? Am I really putting it in another Top 5 post? You betcha! The story follows fifteen-year-old Wulliam, who is about to inherit his father's role as Riverkeep, which involves tending to the river's ice in winter and a lot of fishing out corpses too. A dark spirit possesses his father one night, which sets Wulliam on a journey away from his one know corner of the river, to row down the river's mouth and hopefully find a cure in the belly of a giant sea creature called the mormorach. I recommend getting yourself a hot drink, curling up in a blanket with a view of the pouring rain, maybe light a candle, and pretend it's winter already! Full review from last year here.

Bonus: Our Dark Duet- V.E. Schwab

The second and final in the Monsters of Verity series, Our Dark Duet picks up almost half a year after Kate Harker's departure from Verity in This Savage Song. She is now living in Prosperity, hunting monsters there, where the monster epidemic is still very much underground and mostly unknown by the population. Kate witnesses the aftermath of a an attack by a new kind of monster, and after an encounter with this strange creature, she finds herself leaving her new friends and heading back to Verity to warn them of this new danger. There is a very urban, gritty, city vibe to this series and I can attest to its suitability to rainy summer reading as I read This Savage Song during last year's rainy cottage holiday and Our Dark Duet on this year's rainy cottage holiday!

Books I read in June! Girl Walks into a Bar, Aurabel, Our Dark Duet, Spellbook of the Lost and Found, The Huntress: Sea

Well hello there, it's July how on earth did that happen?? I guess I better sort out my June reads then! I started the month with the audiobook of Rachel Dratch's Girl walks into a Bar, which was pretty funny and stuff. I went off to the seaside for a week with the sequel to mermaid novel Lorali- Aurabel by Laura Dockrill and Our Dark Duet V.E. Schwab, the sequel to This Savage Song. I've already reviewed Our Dark Duet over here. My sunny seaside break turned into a rainy sit by the fire kind of hoilday with Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moira Fowley-Doyle, which was so magical and reminiscent of The Graces, which I read in the seaside cottage last year! I finished off the month of reading with The Huntress: Sea by Sarah Driver, and wow what a magical, lyrical, thrilling adventure! I'll get reviews of Spellbook and Aurable up soon and maybe The Huntress: Sea too!

Girl Walks into a Bar by Rachel Dratch

Aurabel by Laura Dockrill

Our Dark Duet by V.E. Schwab

(review here)

The Huntress: Sea by Sarah Driver

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moira Fowley-Doyle

Top 5 Feminist Young Adult Fiction

There have been some really really great feminist offerings in the YA scene recently. Exposing young people to feminist ideas through fiction is an awesome way to spread further understanding of the topic, as so much of the media we consume filters into our everyday conversations and reactions. These are some of my favourite recent feminist young adult fiction offerings, and I know there are plenty I have still yet to read. After writing this post I realised Holly Bourne, author of Am I Normal Yet?, featured below, has written a guest post of Queen of Contemporary with her Top 5 Feminist YA, thankfully the whole list isn't the same! It's a great list, check it out too! Also, all these book are by female authors!

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

A feminist commentary set in a dystopian future, which is an unsettling reflection on out current reality. Body image issues, living for the pleasure of men, female friendship and rivalry, queerness and breeding boys, this book covers a lot of bases. Louise O'Neill's second book Asking For It, is out soon, and tackles the issue of consent. Review here!

Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne

The focus of this story is on Evie's OCD recovery process at a new college, but the backdrop of figuring out feminism with her new best friends is great. The Spinster Club is an inspired idea, and while not all their ideas are spot on (here's a little bit of a trans-exclusive chat) the point is that they create themselves a space to talk it all through and figure it all out.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E Lockhart

Frankie attempts to take down the patriarchal old-boys-network of her prestigious boarding school from within, by anonymously taking over an elite secret society. Her chats with her older sister on the phone, who has gone to university and discovered women's studies and feminism, are brilliant and provide a chance for Frankie to sound out her own thoughts on the topic. There is no doubt in the readers' mind by the end of the book, that Frankie is going to continue trying to question everything, and tear down to patriarchy. Review here!

Lorali by Laura Dockrill

Not an overt feminist young adult offering, Lorali is a story of a mermaid who comes to land, of  the pirates on her trail, and her new friends on land. The feminist undertones lie in the matriarchy of the mermaid community, deep in the sea, the male pirates who are meticulous in their beauty regimes and tailoring (stereotypically feminine concerns), and large part of the narrative narrator by the female voice of the sea. Little twists like Lorali feeling confident to make the first move, because that's how it's done down in The Deep, are perfect. Review here!

The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew

Set in 2012 in contemporary Nazi England, lead character Jessika Keller leads a life a total submission, just as she and all her peers have been taught. Through her outspoken and rebellious friends Jessika begins be more aware of the constraints on her freedom as a women in the setting of The Greater German Reich. Power, sexuality, patriarchy, and censorship are al explored in this great feminist YA offering.

Review!: Lorali- Laura Dockrill

I have heard so much buzz about this book, so I was super excited to get a signed proof copy from Hot Key Books. It's an unusual premise for a YA novel, mermaids, but worked so well. I don't think I've read many mermaid books before. The story follows Lorali, a mermaid who has surfaced in an english seaside town, where she washes up (naked) in a storm and meets a bewildered teenage boy, Rory. There are multiple points of view, with chapters narrated by Lorali, Rory, and The Sea. It's a great story, tying in all these points of view, showing the relationship between the sea and the land and the inhabitants of each. It's a modern setting, with mobile phones and blogs, but there are pirates at sea, who either hunt or respect the mer-people, and fight amongst each other. The mermaids have their home in the Whirl, a deep, hidden part of the sea, and mostly fear the people on land, for there is a history of hunting and capturing mermaids for their tapestries (tails). Laura Dockrill manages to very quickly show us this world she has built, and explain its history and people, in what could easily become a series of novels from this world (although not necessarily continuing to follow Lorali's story). A tip top story, balancing the fantastical with the mundane.

Five things I loved about Lorali:

1-The Sea chapters are great, providing an almost omniscient voice, which fills the reader in on the histories of characters, and the present goings on in and on the sea. These chapters aren't just for details and info though, The Sea is a character in her own right.

2-The lore of how mermaids become mermaids was brilliant, and I don't know much mer-lore, but I was pretty convinced of this theory. I also like the idea what this could be happening all across the world, maybe a sequel could show us mer-life in another ocean. 

3-The reaction of the British public to news of mermaids was perfect too, with newspaper articles and blog posts working really well in between chapters. It again added another perspective, and gave the character narrators events to react to without them having to explain everything to the reader in an unnatural way. 

4- Lorali herself was a wonderful, joyful character. Her story was a perfect fairy tale beginning, with the protected princess escaping the confines of her castle and finding adventure. Her curiosity and confusion as she slowly figured out her own story was great. I also loved the idea of female mermaids being the dominant sex, that was a nice touch.

5- The ending was perfect for the story, and I won't spoil it but it captured the theme of two separate worlds perfectly.

Bonus- The beautifully preened pirates was such good idea. The strong, menacing, pirates also being perfectly tailored and coiffed, with their fine dining and crisp white sheets made for great characters and gave them the air of an elite club.