Our Recommendations for a Fantastic Memorial Day Weekend

The sun is out, the weather is perfect, and you have three glorious days off in a row. What better way to enjoy this rare combination than to spend the entire weekend reading outside under a tree? So grab your favorite picnic blanket (and a bottle of sunscreen!) and immerse yourself in the worlds of these incredible weekend reads.

Geekerella by Ashley Poston

Geekerella is so fantastic you’ll have to remind yourself to eat regular meals and reapply sunscreen at the correct intervals. This young adult novel deals with fandom with an awkward honesty, reimagining the Cinderella story in an exquisitely modern way. It’s non-stop fun and incredibly engaging – perfect for three straight days of reading. You may even get hit with a wave of Ella Enchanted nostalgia. And who among us hasn’t been craving that?

All the Lives I Want is nothing short of incredible. This compact tome feels like an instruction manual for combating the male gaze in pop culture criticism – perfect armor for these first days of sundresses. This book showcases a masterful balance between memoir and criticism, allowing the reader to get to know Alana Massey through her love of Anjelica Huston, Britney Spears, Amber Rose, and Winona Rider, among others. Her passion for these women – these icons – bleeds onto the page, making it the perfect book to luxuriate in post-picnic.

Sweetbitter is a vibrant and beautifully constructed novel about the cutthroat world of high-end restaurants. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fall in love with the flirtatious waitstaff. It’s the kind of novel that draws you in so thoroughly that you’ll have to remind yourself that the world Stephanie Danler has created is not your own. And immediately after reading it, you’ll be tempted to either begin again or loan out your copy to friends until it’s battered and torn.

The Sun is Also a Star is an addictive and invigorating read. Fans of Everything, Everything already know that Nicola Yoon is a master storyteller, but this novel elevates her already gorgeous and engaging style. The entire novel takes place over the course of 24 hours – and so can your read if you’re being ambitious! Yoon takes her readers on a New York journey so vivid you’ll swear that there’s a map printed on each page. If you believe in love at first sight – or if you definitely don’t – this is the book for you.

Jami Attenberg takes her readers on a magnificently crafted ride through the nonlinear world of her protagonist Andrea. All Grown Up documents Andrea’s first days in New York all the way through her early 40s, pausing and rewinding to tell pivotal moments from a different angle – a new lens. The structure mirrors the protagonists’ own practice of drawing the Empire State Building every day. It’s the same building, but today the light shines a hair differently on the memory. At just over 200 pages, this could easily devoured in a day, making room for more literature – or maybe a daydream about a new city.