It’s honestly shocking to me that the only book blog I’ve ever written was in 2015 considering I read a book a week (humble brag.) In preparations for the 10 year anniversary of The Salty Ju, I realized that this blog, though a BFD in my life for most of that decade, has really become my neglected firstborn in the past few years as I put all of my free time and energy into getting published on other websites and trying to become a Jersey Instagram influencer. And I’d like to formally apologize to The Salty Ju for that. You don’t deserve to be pushed aside and only brought back to life for mega embarrassing personal essays that would never get published anywhere else.

So this is my attempt to make an effort again. When I thought about what I should blog, I realized that I never have anything to yap about in the summer because I spend every waking moment at the beach reading a book. I’ve got a season pass to a private beach that I had to go on a waiting list for. That has no relevance but it makes me feel very VIP. And then I was like AHA! Why the hell wouldn’t I blog my beach reads?! For those of you who have children and will not have another moment of silence for the next 18 years, I’m so sorry but also you should’ve thought about that before you got knocked up, ya hooch. This one is really for the childless singles who perhaps don’t have that spicy of a social life and therefore go to the library (s/o libraries, if you’re paying for a book to read it one time you’re a damn fool…or rich) every other week and read an entire book while roasting on the sand every weekend. I see you because I am you.

Here’s a recap of what I read (sometimes struggled to read as loud obnoxious families set up their circle of 15 chairs in my lap, screamed all day and acted like the beach DJ…seriously am I invisible?) from the first week of June to the book I finished last night, in chronological order because I’m a Type A beast. I skipped one book completely because I liked everything I read except for a real dud by Meg Cabot, which honestly threw me for a loop. The woman who gave us The Princess Diaries!!! Don’t ever read No Words by Meg Cabot…it’s a flop and the only reason I finished it was because I held out hope she was going to put the train back on the tracks and actually tell a story. She did not. That’s the only spoiler you’ll see in this blog as I keep it to strictly plot-summary and my personal opinions in ramble form. If you get tired of my yapping, skip to the italicized line to tell you in one sentence if this book is for you.

Fangirl Down – Tessa Bailey

Tessa Bailey is one of my favorite authors for a light, sexy read. You know you’re going to get a steamy scene or two, and you’re usually going to get a quirky adorable girl who catches the eye of a total babe soda. Does she play into every awkward girl’s fantasy of snagging the guy everyone wants? Ya, duh. Welcome to chick-lit. This one focused on a professional golfer who’s career is on the backslide and his #1 fan, who also happens to be a talented golfer in her own right. She needs money, he needs to stop losing, so he hires her to be his caddy and coach him back to the top. Cue sparks all over the green. Listen, I 100% recommend this book. I thought it was a fun read. But I WILL add some qualifying comments. Homegirl is downright cringey. A grown adult who follows a male golfer around the country and makes signs and screeches at him and enters a contest to meet him is mortifying. Ya really gotta suspend belief a little bit to find her endearing and not mentally unstable. My second gripe is that her character has diabetes and that takes a real central role in the story. Nothing against diabetes or any sort of health condition, but it seems like these days every love story needs an added detail that gets gassed up way too much. Who knows, maybe the diabetes girlies were like YES, FINALLY, a love story for us! So it’s not my place to say…but it did seem forced in parts to reference this character’s sugar levels. Jus sayin is all.

If you ever got Cosmopolitan and flipped to the back for the Red Hot Read, but also like the rom-com buildup to the big show (girls need plot and that’s obvious) this book and literally any other Tessa book is for you.

One of the Good Guys – Araminta Hall

This was a curveball for me. Each week I go to the lib and I grab a breezy rom-com with a colorful cover featuring an illustration of a broody looking guy with a chiseled jaw–bonus points if he’s in a backwards hat and then I pick a midnight blue cover with a creepy-looking house with some title variation of “the neighbor in the last house is watching you.” I read the dark & twisty book first, then do a palate cleanse with people pretending they’re married to get ahead at work and accidentally falling in love along the way. This book presented as twisty, but also had some interesting undertones of “are all men rapey murderers?” mixed in. I was intrigued. I don’t know that it would be at the top of my list for rec’s, but it was a different approach to the “who’s telling the truth” type of storytelling. A slow burn at first, it follows a guy who is going through a divorce and takes a job as a forest ranger out in the middle of nowhere. Through his perspective of what went wrong in his relationship (very victim-oriented), we also learn that two young girls are hiking across the country to raise awareness for sexual assault and just reminded in general how women are treated by disgusting men. They cross paths in the forest where he lives and end up going missing. The book does a good job of making you question if this guy is actually a total sociopath or if he really is “one of the good guys.” It has a nice twist in the end and being satisfied with it is the closest I’ll ever get to becoming a hardcore feminist who marches in parades with a vagina hat.

If you’re a pussy-head marcher, this book is absolutely for you, but ALSO if you want to dip your toes in the men are trash waters, this is a nice shallow, thought-provoking dip.

Welcome Home, Caroline Kline – Courtney Preiss

I found out about this book before it was even published through the Jersey Collective, the local group/account that I’ve done a photography takeover on a couple times now. The author lives in Asbury Park and I thought it was cool that by six degrees of separation (following the same local IG account) I knew her. You’ll notice that this book does not have a library sticker on it because I ACTUALLY purchased it. And I didn’t return it a day later after reading it. An incredibly rare occurrence! I wanted to support the local author cause because if the day ever comes that I publish my memoir, you bet your ass I’ll want everyone to pay full-price for a hard copy. Also, it looked like a book that intertwined many of my interests: baseball, the Jersey shore, and moving back home for a short stint to lick one’s wounds. We love a messy lead and Caroline Kline is certainly that. She quits her job to move to CA with her boyfriend, gets dumped, then ends up moving home to help her dad mend after a tumble and take his place in the local Jersey Shore men’s softball league that he’s determined to win a championship with. This story has everything! Sports, family drama, vulnerable ‘where the hell is my life going’ moments, being back in your hometown when you never wanted to be back in your hometown sass and of course, a summer romance. Caroline also has a Grade A foul mouth and lots of Jersey ‘tude, which is so fun to read in a story and much less fun when it’s directed at you on a Sunday morning in ShopRite.

Check it out if you want to try being a Jersey Girl for a summer down the shore on for size and see what it’s like to prove yourself on an all-boys team and talk trash to a bunch of old townies.

Everything After – Jill Santopolo

I remember reading almost exactly the same book by Jill Santopolo before, so if you’re not into authors regurgitating the same storyline with different characters, skip this one. If I were Jill’s husband, I’d start to get a little suspicious by book #2 where the plot is all about that one significant love…”the one who got away,” reappearing after decades, perhaps at a crossroads in the main character’s current relationship, making them question if they made the right choice or if they should blow up their whole life. As someone who has nearly drowned in the BUT WHAT IF WE WERE MEANT TO BE whirlpool one too many times, I clearly have a soft spot for the second chance romance novels. I imagine many people can relate to letting your mind wander down the ‘every decision you make sets you on a completely different path’ wormhole. This story following a woman who is married and trying for kids flips back and forth between her present-day story and old journals to weave together past and present with the two greatest loves of her life. It’s a more serious read dealing with pregnancy loss, keeping secrets, and figuring out who you are and not losing that in a relationship. So for me, it sits neatly dead center on the spectrum between trashy novels with boneriffic sex scenes and murder books.

If your’e feeling wistful or like maybe you should leave your husband and go on tour with your ex-boyfriend who wrote a hit song about how much he loves you, then this is FO SHO the read for you.

The Daydreams – Laura Hankin

I keep a long-running list of books that are recommended to me from friends, newsletters, mah homegirl Reese Witherspoon, and then I usually forget that list exists and judge books by their covers and grab a stack every few weeks from the new books section. Then I hit a wall and realize I can’t pick up the romantic novel that LOOKS normal one more time only to read the description ending in: “will two wolf shape-shifters get it together and find love?” Sorry not sorry, wolf sex ain’t it for me. Anyway, the point of that rant was to say that this month I realized I had read almost every new book that I wanted to and it was time to pull up my trusty, often ignored list and dive into the stacks for not-so-new books. This was one of them. Recommended for millennials who loved teen soaps (ME), this follows a group of actors who grew up doing a musical show together on essentially a Disney network but they’ll never name-drop Disney in a fictional story because they’ll owe Walt big buckers. It was giving cast of High School Musical vibes and was told mostly from the “bitchy” one’s perspective flipping between the past and to the present day, using devices like journal entries, gossip columns, group chats, celeb interviews and tweets. It was a fun way to get a probably more true than not depiction of what it’s like to throw teenagers into stardom and have them all try to figure that out while also having slimy producers and network execs running their lives and cashing in on their every move. It’s not SO jarring that we’re creeping into Dan Schneider/Nickelodeon territory, but it’s got just the right amount of juicy goss and slimy old white men being dirtbags. Again, a different read than I normally go for because apparently Summer Ju is really experimenting with genres these days!

Read it if you’ve always wondered what it would be like to be mega-famous for 2 years as a teen and then drop out of the spotlight completely to become a lawyer, only to eventually cash in on reunion culture.

The Rule Book – Sarah Adams

The experimenting has ended because this is so cookie-cutter my type of book, it hurts. (Much like Fangirl Down.) Nora’s a sports agent who wears funky outfits everyone makes fun of and says a ton of stupid phrases but doesn’t care because she crushes it at work. Her ex-boyfriend, Derek, is a professional football player. Great timing as the world is obsessed with dating the guy on the football team at the moment…wonder why. She signs him as her first client but he hates her for dumping him in college so natch there’s a little hazing that leads to accidentally revealing true feelings that are still miraculously lingering a decade later. This story’s inclusive twist is that Derek is dyslexic. RAISE AWARENESS FOR DISCOVERING YOU HAVE A LEARNING DISORDER IN YOUR THIRTIES. This is what I’m saying about the add-ons in chick-lit plots these days. I can’t math and have to use a tip calculator every time I eat dinner out. Can we include that as a trauma in the next romance novel so I can feel seen and hold onto hope that someone will still fall in love with me even though I’m dumb with numbies?! LMK. PS it was clear this was one of a series as there were many references to all of the boyz on the football team being swept off their feet with “the one” so if you like this installment, feel free to read the probably 6 other identical love stories…I know I will as I wait for my knight in shining pro athlete who just wants a goofy girl to settle down with.

Read to find out what would’ve happened if Tim Riggins never went to jail and ended up in the NFL and his new agent was Lyla Garrity.

The Golden Couple – Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

I read this in one day and that’s the quickest Salty Ju stamp of approval on a book and also proof that I literally have no life. Following a radical therapist who guarantees to fix someone’s life in ten sessions (can I have her numba?) and a couple who seek her out for help, it’s one of those stories where you flip back and forth between the therapist’s perspective and the wife who cheated on her husband’s perspective and you learn new secrets each chapter. You question who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy and what else is being hidden and obviously you’re not going to find out until the twist at the very end WHICH IS WHY I COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN UNTIL I KNEW FOR SURE. I suspected something wasn’t right with the one who turns out to be a villain, but I didn’t outright predict it and there were enough weirdos involved for everyone to look sus. So it was worth staying up until 1am to finish on a Saturday evening. WOO wild night.

Read if you enjoy thrillers that aren’t terrifying, but have enough drama and clues to keep you guessing who the psychopath is.

**Also, completely unrelated to the plot, but this was another one recommended to me a while back by a fellow bookworm and when I looked it up on the trusty catalog at the library, they said they had it but I couldn’t find it, even double checking by singing my ABC’s in my head, so I asked the librarian for assistance, and when she couldn’t find it, I told her to forget it, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Except that she was committed and wanted to find it too. As it turns out, this book was only available in Large Print. Since I’m not geriatric, I’ve always borrowed regular print books, but I felt bad about this 20 minute search so I borrowed the LP. When I cracked this bad boy open at the beach, I was MEGA embarrassed. I saw how big those words were and I assumed everyone behind me on the sand and possibly parasailing 50 ft in the air could read along with me. Whenever I looked at my phone I thought I had messed with a setting to make that text smaller. So that’ll probably be it for me with the size 50 font books. I even took myself out for a seafood dinner (cause no one else will) and brought this book as my date. HIGHLY recommend shoving crab cake into your crab-hole, slurping rosé, and trying to figure out who the loony is in a good read (and letting the old couple 4 tables away try as well, without even putting on their cheaters.)

It Must Be True Then – Luci Adams

This is for my Sophie Kinsella girlies. Anyone who loves a real disaster of a British character. Daisy gets dumped by a marketing exec she’s been banging at work for a year and also fired from said job right around the same time. She deals with it by staging a bunch of fake photos and videos on Instagram to show everyone she’s doing just fine and embarrassing herself. There’s wholesome friend and family storylines, obviously a romance brews, and even some sassy kids who surprisingly for me don’t ruin the story, but make it more heartwarming. It’s a lovely lesson in focusing on the good in your life, not being a fake betch on social media, and trusting the process because everything will all work out in the end. I need all of those lessons very frequently, so it hit home for me. And oh boy, it sure is fun to read someone else’s hot mess express journey to learning these lessons. It’s the classic, well I’m bad but at least I’m not THAT BAD. Also, you CANNOT beat British funny phrases. For instance when Daisy’s sister says, “Because it’s 3pm on a Wednesday and I just caught you sharing your nip nops with the Internet.” Cue me inserting nip nops into every sentence forever and ever.

This book is like Sophie Kinsella’s The Burnout meets Can You Keep A Secret? You’ll appreciate it if you’ve ever done something cringe for social media to make your life look better than it is or attract a guy.

Five Bad Deeds – Caz Frear

Another page turner to see who is terrible and who isn’t in a cast of shady characters. The book starts out with Ellen in jail and then goes backwards three months and obviously you spend the whole story trying to find out how this B ended up in the slammer. Told from MANY different perspectives, it was almost difficult at first to keep everyone straight, especially when you toss in names like Nush and Esme and Orla. Those damn Brits, I tell ya. It’s fun to unravel the secrets and also just the general theme (that often happens in these thriller-type novels) that people who make up your community and seem to be your closest circle of girliepops more often than not actually can’t stand you and wish for you to fail and/or try to steal your husband. #Girlhood.

This book is for you if you love a mystery full of family drama, can keep up with a lot of characters, and believe a house can be cursed.

I had high hopes of getting through my next book (One-Star Romance by Laura Hankin) before publishing this blog, but I wanted to get the blog out there while there are still beach days to be had so you can all take my expert advice and go get yourself a fresh read. Since it would bother me until the end of time if I didn’t have an even-steven 10 titles, I’m going to cheat and add one that I read back in January because I believe every millennial should read it and better sooner rather than later since OF COURSE they’re turning it into a movie now.

The Woman In Me – Britney Spears

It’s no secret that I love a celebrity memoir (please refer to the several YEARS of celeb goss I peddled in my Weekly JUices on this very blog) and Britney’s was HIGHLY anticipated. Was I expecting her to have actually written it? No, of course not. But read one page of this book and you immediately know it’s true. If I had to guess this whole book is about a 3rd grade reading level of difficulty. Even Derek from The Rule Book could read it with his dyslexia. HEYYYOOO. Callback dig. But actually, I recommend it to all because it is THAT easy to get through. The chapters are incredibly short and the vocabulary used is that of a woman who grew up in the south and then was held hostage by a lunatic for 13 years and survived to tell the tale. For anyone who was even a scooch intrigued by her conservatorship, this is her side of the story. And folks, it is horrifying. It’s eye opening to see how someone can get manipulated into being a prisoner and essentially a slave to her deranged dad as a grown adult and have it be perfectly legal. More importantly, if you ever had a crush on JT growing up like I did, you’ll want to cringe out of your skin at the BTS stories of their relationship. What a tool he is. #TeamBritney! I hope she stays somewhat sane and stops tossing knives around and showing us her cooch on IG, but also, after reading this book, I totally understand why she would.

If you liked Jessica Simpson’s memoir for the insider relationship stories and very real trauma that we never got the full scoop on because tabloids just shit all over these women, you’ll appreciate BritBrit’s story.

JUST FOR LAUGHS BONUS: Not to kink shame, but here’s an example of why after pinching a bright book from the shelf, I always read the back/inside cover for a brief overview and to make sure I’m not about to dive into a book with furry fetish bullshit. This one was so preposterous that I sent it to my sister for a chuckle and will now share with you for some shark shits and giggles. Don’t just judge a book by its cover…judge it by its cover AND THEN double check the summary. Imagine being married to a Great White? Nightmare, I assume. A gorgeous debut novel though, I’m sure.