Recommended Reads - Contemporary

**Summer Reading Recommendations: A Contemporary Series of Books**

The sun keeps on going behind the clouds and it is really ruining my lighting so I'm sorry that I look pink right now or at least I look pink to me I don't know but yeah this is a really great book and I recommend it. Next up is the Anna and the French kiss trilogy by Stephanie Perkins, so we have Anna and the French kiss which takes place in Paris and then we have Lola and the boy next door which takes place in San Francisco and then we have Isla and the happily ever after which kind of takes place in New York but not entirely. Which was disappointing to me but overall I really love this series, it's just the perfect fluffy contemporaries for reading by the pool like if you're going on vacation or road trip read like it is honestly just the perfect summer reading and I just love the whole series um Anna is definitely my favorite then I would say Isla and then Lola but all of them are really really great.

**Unique and Quirky Stories**

Next up is night owls by Jen Bennett, this book is called something else in the States the and that and that an at top anatomical anatomical I believe that's how you say that word. The anatomical shape of the heart I'll link it down below for you guys because I clearly can't pronounce it or you can just google Jen Bennett and I'm sure it will come up but I bought this book on a whim when I was in England last year and I absolutely really really enjoyed it. I thought it was really good, it's definitely very unique it's about this girl who has this obsession with drawing like the anatomy and like um kind of the working the inner workings of the body if you will and it's kind of a really cool interesting concept to read about. She meets this boy who he does different kinds of art as in he does graffiti and stuff like that so kind of the clashing of their worlds is really interesting and really well-written.

**Parisian Adventures**

Next up is just one day by Gayle Forman, this is a duology I'm just too lazy to go and get the other book which is called just one year and I've really really loved it. It's about this girl who goes on this crazy adventure for just one day in Paris with this guy that she just met and it's kind of it's that but then it's even more. You get to see like is her summer before she starts college so if you're in that kind of like summer before you start college I would definitely recommend this book because I think it's a really kind of interesting meditation on that and it was really relatable for me to read about. It makes you feel like you're not alone which is really nice because can be a very lonely period that transitional period but I just think it's such a great book.

**Behind the Scenes**

Next up is everything leads to you by Nina Lacour, this book is really cool because you get to see a whole different side of a Hollywood that you don't really think about or at least I hadn't thought about. The girl is kind of studying to be a set designer so but she's actively working on designing sets and you get to see all the kind of thought that goes into that process and it also has some LGBT characters which is really cool and I like how that's not the main focus of the story it's just kind of another aspect to it. But this book overall was really great and it's just really fun.

**Love Letters**

Finally, my final contemporary recommendation is the all the boys I've loved before now series by Jenny Han, so this was supposed to be a duology which I was really happy with now it's going to be a trilogy which I'm kind of met on there just aren't that many do all of these out there and I was doing a do ologies recommendations been you know I had it all filmed and then um they announced that this was going to be a trilogy so now we have your refill mitt so I'm a little bit bitter about it but I find the series to be super fun. A girl who had written letters to all the boys that she had ever loved and then they mysteriously end up getting mailed out so she kind of has had to kind of has to deal with the fallout of that tons of fun really love Jenny Han and it's just a really great now trilogy.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone its Hayley and today I'm going to be talking about my recommended reads for contemporary so contemporary or realistic fiction is obviously realistic it takes place in the real world and it's kind of classified as nothing that has any like fantastical elements or anything like that and it's a huge huge genre so I have 10 ish recommendations and I say ish because I kind of have it divided into somewhere it's just like random books and then the first part will be specific authors in the contemporary genre that I think you should read by a couple of the authors are really popular so I'm only going to talk about them briefly but the rest I will kind of delve more into so you'll kind of get it as they get into it so let's just get into it so the first author that I have to talk about is one that is one of my favorites ever of all the genres and I would just be remiss to not include him in this video and that is of course John Green so these are two of my favorites of his books I'm going to be recommending three of them out of all the ones that he's written I had read all of them but these three are just my favorite so the first one is obviously The Fault in Our Stars this is one of my all-time favorite books and I just absolutely adore it it's one of the books that really got me into reading and I just I've read it so many times and I just absolutely loved it and then the next one is Paper Towns which I even I would say is my least favorite out of the three that I am recommending but I do still really enjoy this one and I like what it kind of contemplates and the message that it is giving and the other one is Looking for Alaska that's one of my all-time favorites and I just think it's just such a great book and I once again I really like the message and I think that John Green's books really all have a message and it's a really important message and he does a really great job of conveying that message in a way that isn't really condescending I really like his characters I do find that sometimes the characters are a little bit unrealistic with how knowledgeable they are but at the same time you know you're reading a john green book because of the characters and I personally really like that I like the fact that his work is so quotable and I dress I really enjoy him so yeah the next author I'm going to recommend is Morgan Matson I love Morgan Matson so much I just think her books are so fun and so different and that's why I love them so much so I have only read these three of her books I plan on reading second chance summer very soon like that'll probably be the next book that I pick up after I finish the book that I'm currently reading I just I want to get into that one but I know it's going to be heartbreaking so I've kind of been putting it off but this is her most recent book the unexpected everything and this is it's a close second like I can it's so hard for me to rank her books because I absolutely adored this one it's about a politician's daughter who ends up being a dog walker her world is kind of turned upside down when there's a huge scandal with her father and you just kind of see her going on off the beaten path when she said that she's had everything planned for her whole life and now nothing is nothing as as she had anticipated so it's kind of her trying to navigate the world now that it's not perfectly planned and then we have since you've been gone which is about a girl who's her best friend just her best friend is really like outgoing and the protagonist of this book is she's really kind of to herself really soft-spoken and she's kind of sheltered and her best friend ends up going missing or just leaving and she leaves her a bucket list of things to do while she's gone so she it's just about her doing these things kind of breaking out of her shell and learning to live without kind of having her best friend as her crutch so I really enjoyed that one and then we have Amy and Rodgers epic detour wick which is probably her most popular work I would say and it's I think this one is my absolute favorite I just loved it I loved the characters and I loved the whole concept like her books not all of them but a lot of them have playlists in them and they have like just little extra things like I can never find it when I'm trying to show it but I will have like pictures of the place that they're going because what's happening is the girl's father has just died and she has to get her car across the country but he's died in the car accident so she's not really comfortable with that so a family friend Roger her husband in good to go with her and they've been given this route but they decide to go completely off the row and go on their own roadtrip and it's just tons of fun and I think it's one of the if not the best road trip books that I've ever read the next author I have to recommend is Rainbow Rowell and I have two favorites out of the books of hers that I've read I have read most of them the only two that I haven't read are carrion which I do own now and what is it attachment so I haven't read those two yet but I do plan on reading them and carry on in fantasy anyway so it wouldn't be included in here but these two are my favorites out of hers that I have read so fangirl is definitely my ultimate favorite it's about cath who is in her first year as an English major so I read this in my second year but I still found it really relatable she's she loves fan fiction so she has this whole world of fandoms that she absolutely adores and I just found her to be a really relatable character and it's one of the most relatable books that I've ever read and I plan on rereading it soon so then I can do a review for you guys by the way if I have a review for any of these books I'll link it down below for you guys as per usual and then these my second favorite out of her books is Eleanor & Park this is probably her most popular book and it's just a really cool story about two kind of weird kids who develop this relationship during the 80s and it's just kind of you get to navigate their world and super quirky super fun and just really enjoyable my final actual author recommendation is Huntly Fitzpatrick now I have read um two of her books she has three I believe unless I'm missing one I know that there's a sequel to this one but I finally read this one I have had this book on so many monthly TBR's but it is just ridiculous but I finally read it this past month and I really enjoyed it I loved the concept of it where this girl lives with her mom and her sister and they live in this really secluded family they're really kind of like quiet into themselves but then their neighbors have this huge family there's like ten kids and they're super loud super crazy and it's just kind of her life as she kind of goes on the other side of the fence and ends up developing a relationship with one of the boys and the huge family despite her mother's wishes but you kind of get her you get to see her kind of wrapped up in this world of craziness and it's really awesome to see her kind of come out of her shell so I really enjoyed that book and then we have what I thought was true which is about a girl who lives on this um it's kind of like a summer vacationing Island but she lives there permanently and she kind of she went to the mainland once and had this kind of night where she made what she thinks is a mistake and then that mistake ends up on the island and she can't really avoid it anymore so it's just kind of her trying to navigate the summer with trying to avoid this mistake that kind of has just come to smack her in the face I just really like these books I like the characters and I like the writing it's really great and I just think she's a really great summer writer so my first random contemporary recommendation is winger by Andrew Smith this follows a boy who is 14 but he is in his sophomore year of high school and he it's kind of him trying to navigate high school as a younger kid and trying to kind of like grow up and figure things out this book is really really fun but then the end packs a real punch that you're not expecting and that's what really made me love it so much I also read the second book in Douala G which is standoff and that one was really great as well not quite as good as this one but overall I would recommend this to all of you it's really cool and just kind of a nice look at having a male protagonist because you don't get male protagonists very often next up is everything-everything by Nicola youn this book is about a girl who is allergic to literally everything she can't leave her house she's kind of like that bubble girl she kind of have to has to live in this bubble but she ends up meeting a boy who lives across the street their windows are across from each other so she ends up developing a relationship with someone who isn't her parents or her mother or her caregiver for the first time and you kind of get to see her um meeting someone new and trying to navigate the world like that I've said navigate like six times in this video I'm sorry apparently the word of the day today but I really liked this book I did have issues with the endings but overall I liked the message of going on an adventure and kind of like leaving your own bubble even if it's a self-made bubble the Sun keeps on going behind the clouds and it is really ruining my lighting so I'm sorry that I look pink right now or at least I look pink to me I don't know but yeah this is a really great book and I recommend it next up is the Anna and the French kiss trilogy by Stephanie Perkins so we have Anna and the French kiss which takes place in Paris and then we have Lola and the boy next door which takes place in San Francisco and then we have Isla and the happily ever after which kind of takes place in New York but not entirely which was disappointing to me but overall I really love this series it's just the perfect fluffy contemporaries for reading by the pool like if you're going on vacation road trip read like it is honestly just the perfect this is the epitome of summer reading and I just love the whole series um Anna is definitely my favorite then I would say Isla and then Lola but all of them are really really great next up is night owls by Jen Bennett this book is called something else in the States the and that and that an at top anatomical anatomical I believe that's how you say that word the anatomical shape of the heart I'll link it down below for you guys because I clearly can't pronounce it or you can just google Jen Bennett and I'm sure it will come up but I bought this book on a whim when I was in England last year and I absolutely really really enjoyed it I thought it was really good it's definitely very unique it's about this girl who has this obsession with drawing like the anatomy and like um kind of the working the inner workings of the body if you will and it's kind of a really cool interesting concept to read about and she meets this boy who he does different kinds of art as in he does graffiti and stuff like that so kind of the clashing of their worlds is really interesting and really well-written and it takes place in San Francisco which I really enjoyed and yeah it was really cool next up is just one day by Gayle Forman and this is a duology I'm just too lazy to go and get the other book which is called just one year and I've really really loved it it's about this girl who goes on this crazy adventure for just one day in Paris with this guy that she just met and it's kind of it's that but then it's even more you get to see like is her summer before she starts college so if you're in that kind of like summer before you start college I would definitely recommend this book because I think it's a really kind of interesting meditation on that and it was really relatable for me to read about and I just think you question a lot of things on that summer and you get to see the character doing that and it makes you feel like you're not alone which is really nice because can be a very lonely period that transitional period but I just think it's such a great book you get to travel the world throughout this duology and it is seriously awesome next is everything leads to you by Nina Lacour and this book is really cool because you get to see a whole different side of a Hollywood that you don't really think about or at least I hadn't thought about the girl is kind of studying to be a set designer so but she's actively working on designing sets and you get to see all the kind of thought that goes into that process and it also has some LGBT characters which is really cool and I like how that's not the main focus of the story it's just kind of another aspect to it but this book overall was really great and it's just really fun and my final contemporary recommendation is the - all the boys I've loved before now it's going to be a trilogy by Jenny Han so this was supposed to be a dual ology which I was really happy with now it's going to be a trilogy which I'm kind of met on there just aren't that many do all of these out there and I was doing a do ologies recommendations been you know I had it all filmed and then um they announced that this was going to be a trilogy so now we have your refill mitt so I'm a little bit bitter about it but I find the series to be super fun but a girl who had written letters to all the boys that she had ever loved and then they mysteriously end up getting mailed out so she kind of has had to kind of has to deal with the fallout of that tons of fun really love Jenny Han and it's just a really great now trilogy so those are all of my recommendations as far as contemporary or realistic fiction goes I hope you guys enjoyed this video let me know if you have read any of these books your thoughts on them and yeah I'll see you guys in the next video byehey everyone its Hayley and today I'm going to be talking about my recommended reads for contemporary so contemporary or realistic fiction is obviously realistic it takes place in the real world and it's kind of classified as nothing that has any like fantastical elements or anything like that and it's a huge huge genre so I have 10 ish recommendations and I say ish because I kind of have it divided into somewhere it's just like random books and then the first part will be specific authors in the contemporary genre that I think you should read by a couple of the authors are really popular so I'm only going to talk about them briefly but the rest I will kind of delve more into so you'll kind of get it as they get into it so let's just get into it so the first author that I have to talk about is one that is one of my favorites ever of all the genres and I would just be remiss to not include him in this video and that is of course John Green so these are two of my favorites of his books I'm going to be recommending three of them out of all the ones that he's written I had read all of them but these three are just my favorite so the first one is obviously The Fault in Our Stars this is one of my all-time favorite books and I just absolutely adore it it's one of the books that really got me into reading and I just I've read it so many times and I just absolutely loved it and then the next one is Paper Towns which I even I would say is my least favorite out of the three that I am recommending but I do still really enjoy this one and I like what it kind of contemplates and the message that it is giving and the other one is Looking for Alaska that's one of my all-time favorites and I just think it's just such a great book and I once again I really like the message and I think that John Green's books really all have a message and it's a really important message and he does a really great job of conveying that message in a way that isn't really condescending I really like his characters I do find that sometimes the characters are a little bit unrealistic with how knowledgeable they are but at the same time you know you're reading a john green book because of the characters and I personally really like that I like the fact that his work is so quotable and I dress I really enjoy him so yeah the next author I'm going to recommend is Morgan Matson I love Morgan Matson so much I just think her books are so fun and so different and that's why I love them so much so I have only read these three of her books I plan on reading second chance summer very soon like that'll probably be the next book that I pick up after I finish the book that I'm currently reading I just I want to get into that one but I know it's going to be heartbreaking so I've kind of been putting it off but this is her most recent book the unexpected everything and this is it's a close second like I can it's so hard for me to rank her books because I absolutely adored this one it's about a politician's daughter who ends up being a dog walker her world is kind of turned upside down when there's a huge scandal with her father and you just kind of see her going on off the beaten path when she said that she's had everything planned for her whole life and now nothing is nothing as as she had anticipated so it's kind of her trying to navigate the world now that it's not perfectly planned and then we have since you've been gone which is about a girl who's her best friend just her best friend is really like outgoing and the protagonist of this book is she's really kind of to herself really soft-spoken and she's kind of sheltered and her best friend ends up going missing or just leaving and she leaves her a bucket list of things to do while she's gone so she it's just about her doing these things kind of breaking out of her shell and learning to live without kind of having her best friend as her crutch so I really enjoyed that one and then we have Amy and Rodgers epic detour wick which is probably her most popular work I would say and it's I think this one is my absolute favorite I just loved it I loved the characters and I loved the whole concept like her books not all of them but a lot of them have playlists in them and they have like just little extra things like I can never find it when I'm trying to show it but I will have like pictures of the place that they're going because what's happening is the girl's father has just died and she has to get her car across the country but he's died in the car accident so she's not really comfortable with that so a family friend Roger her husband in good to go with her and they've been given this route but they decide to go completely off the row and go on their own roadtrip and it's just tons of fun and I think it's one of the if not the best road trip books that I've ever read the next author I have to recommend is Rainbow Rowell and I have two favorites out of the books of hers that I've read I have read most of them the only two that I haven't read are carrion which I do own now and what is it attachment so I haven't read those two yet but I do plan on reading them and carry on in fantasy anyway so it wouldn't be included in here but these two are my favorites out of hers that I have read so fangirl is definitely my ultimate favorite it's about cath who is in her first year as an English major so I read this in my second year but I still found it really relatable she's she loves fan fiction so she has this whole world of fandoms that she absolutely adores and I just found her to be a really relatable character and it's one of the most relatable books that I've ever read and I plan on rereading it soon so then I can do a review for you guys by the way if I have a review for any of these books I'll link it down below for you guys as per usual and then these my second favorite out of her books is Eleanor & Park this is probably her most popular book and it's just a really cool story about two kind of weird kids who develop this relationship during the 80s and it's just kind of you get to navigate their world and super quirky super fun and just really enjoyable my final actual author recommendation is Huntly Fitzpatrick now I have read um two of her books she has three I believe unless I'm missing one I know that there's a sequel to this one but I finally read this one I have had this book on so many monthly TBR's but it is just ridiculous but I finally read it this past month and I really enjoyed it I loved the concept of it where this girl lives with her mom and her sister and they live in this really secluded family they're really kind of like quiet into themselves but then their neighbors have this huge family there's like ten kids and they're super loud super crazy and it's just kind of her life as she kind of goes on the other side of the fence and ends up developing a relationship with one of the boys and the huge family despite her mother's wishes but you kind of get her you get to see her kind of wrapped up in this world of craziness and it's really awesome to see her kind of come out of her shell so I really enjoyed that book and then we have what I thought was true which is about a girl who lives on this um it's kind of like a summer vacationing Island but she lives there permanently and she kind of she went to the mainland once and had this kind of night where she made what she thinks is a mistake and then that mistake ends up on the island and she can't really avoid it anymore so it's just kind of her trying to navigate the summer with trying to avoid this mistake that kind of has just come to smack her in the face I just really like these books I like the characters and I like the writing it's really great and I just think she's a really great summer writer so my first random contemporary recommendation is winger by Andrew Smith this follows a boy who is 14 but he is in his sophomore year of high school and he it's kind of him trying to navigate high school as a younger kid and trying to kind of like grow up and figure things out this book is really really fun but then the end packs a real punch that you're not expecting and that's what really made me love it so much I also read the second book in Douala G which is standoff and that one was really great as well not quite as good as this one but overall I would recommend this to all of you it's really cool and just kind of a nice look at having a male protagonist because you don't get male protagonists very often next up is everything-everything by Nicola youn this book is about a girl who is allergic to literally everything she can't leave her house she's kind of like that bubble girl she kind of have to has to live in this bubble but she ends up meeting a boy who lives across the street their windows are across from each other so she ends up developing a relationship with someone who isn't her parents or her mother or her caregiver for the first time and you kind of get to see her um meeting someone new and trying to navigate the world like that I've said navigate like six times in this video I'm sorry apparently the word of the day today but I really liked this book I did have issues with the endings but overall I liked the message of going on an adventure and kind of like leaving your own bubble even if it's a self-made bubble the Sun keeps on going behind the clouds and it is really ruining my lighting so I'm sorry that I look pink right now or at least I look pink to me I don't know but yeah this is a really great book and I recommend it next up is the Anna and the French kiss trilogy by Stephanie Perkins so we have Anna and the French kiss which takes place in Paris and then we have Lola and the boy next door which takes place in San Francisco and then we have Isla and the happily ever after which kind of takes place in New York but not entirely which was disappointing to me but overall I really love this series it's just the perfect fluffy contemporaries for reading by the pool like if you're going on vacation road trip read like it is honestly just the perfect this is the epitome of summer reading and I just love the whole series um Anna is definitely my favorite then I would say Isla and then Lola but all of them are really really great next up is night owls by Jen Bennett this book is called something else in the States the and that and that an at top anatomical anatomical I believe that's how you say that word the anatomical shape of the heart I'll link it down below for you guys because I clearly can't pronounce it or you can just google Jen Bennett and I'm sure it will come up but I bought this book on a whim when I was in England last year and I absolutely really really enjoyed it I thought it was really good it's definitely very unique it's about this girl who has this obsession with drawing like the anatomy and like um kind of the working the inner workings of the body if you will and it's kind of a really cool interesting concept to read about and she meets this boy who he does different kinds of art as in he does graffiti and stuff like that so kind of the clashing of their worlds is really interesting and really well-written and it takes place in San Francisco which I really enjoyed and yeah it was really cool next up is just one day by Gayle Forman and this is a duology I'm just too lazy to go and get the other book which is called just one year and I've really really loved it it's about this girl who goes on this crazy adventure for just one day in Paris with this guy that she just met and it's kind of it's that but then it's even more you get to see like is her summer before she starts college so if you're in that kind of like summer before you start college I would definitely recommend this book because I think it's a really kind of interesting meditation on that and it was really relatable for me to read about and I just think you question a lot of things on that summer and you get to see the character doing that and it makes you feel like you're not alone which is really nice because can be a very lonely period that transitional period but I just think it's such a great book you get to travel the world throughout this duology and it is seriously awesome next is everything leads to you by Nina Lacour and this book is really cool because you get to see a whole different side of a Hollywood that you don't really think about or at least I hadn't thought about the girl is kind of studying to be a set designer so but she's actively working on designing sets and you get to see all the kind of thought that goes into that process and it also has some LGBT characters which is really cool and I like how that's not the main focus of the story it's just kind of another aspect to it but this book overall was really great and it's just really fun and my final contemporary recommendation is the - all the boys I've loved before now it's going to be a trilogy by Jenny Han so this was supposed to be a dual ology which I was really happy with now it's going to be a trilogy which I'm kind of met on there just aren't that many do all of these out there and I was doing a do ologies recommendations been you know I had it all filmed and then um they announced that this was going to be a trilogy so now we have your refill mitt so I'm a little bit bitter about it but I find the series to be super fun but a girl who had written letters to all the boys that she had ever loved and then they mysteriously end up getting mailed out so she kind of has had to kind of has to deal with the fallout of that tons of fun really love Jenny Han and it's just a really great now trilogy so those are all of my recommendations as far as contemporary or realistic fiction goes I hope you guys enjoyed this video let me know if you have read any of these books your thoughts on them and yeah I'll see you guys in the next video bye\n"