Hot SUMMER READS

This season's most essential accessory (after SPF, naturally) is a book you can't put down. Tuck one of our picks—from rom-coms to thrillers—into your tote and find a shady spot to dive in.

- BY SARAH VINCENT

THE SCIENCE OF LOVE

Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor

For fans of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, this dramatic romance thrums amid the high-stakes world of biotech startups. Harvard students Jack and Zoe are drawn to each other's brilliance, and together they invent an anti-aging drug that might promise immortality. But as recklessness pushes their success and their relationship to dizzying new heights, a shocking betrayal proves that they have even farther to fall.

PARADISE OR PRISON?

The Garden by Nick Newman

This claustrophobic and darkly beautiful thriller is a Gothic, dystopian inversion of The Secret Garden. Elderly sisters Evelyn and Lily have always lived within their tightly walled garden, barely eking out a living through apocalyptic dust storms. When a boy gets through their crumbling walls, the first male they have seen in years, Evelyn watches with rising horror as her relationship with her sister and everything she knows begins to unravel.

MIND-BENDING METAFICTION

Endling by Maria Reva

An “endling” is the last of its species—unique, much like this brilliantly bizarre novel. Nastia and Yeva work in Ukrainian romance tours, entertaining men for money. Yeva does it to support her conservation work rescuing rare snails, Nastia to rebel against her mother. Meanwhile, an author struggles with the devastating effects of the war in Ukraine. This might be the smartest thing you'll read all summer (but don't forget the tissues).

AUGUST BOOK CLUB PICK: TRAD WIFE THRILLER

Everyone Is Lying to You by Jo Piazza