summer of lit fic

[00:00:00]Hi guys, welcome to today's video. My name is Jaylen if you're new. So this summer I'm trying to build my reading around kind of a theme instead of a random TBR. I'm doing I guess you could call it a series summer of fill in the blank. Today's video, as you can tell by the title, is going to be summer of litics. So we're going to be reading all literary fiction books. I'm only going to do three in this video this time, but we could do three, four depending on the genre. I'm out of the slump and I really want to read again. That's all I had to say really for now and we can go ahead and get right into the first book. Hi guys. So, I started reading barely started. I read a page, so let's not even say started, but I'm starting to read The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie. I read a Mia McKenzie book in a vlog before, and I thought it was so good. It was so funny. I got her humor.

[00:00:45]I got her character development. It was kind of short, so I didn't have five star feelings because I felt like it just wrapped up really quickly. That one was called These Heathens. My god. Woo. It was called These Heathens by Mia Mackenzie.

[00:01:01]And that book was great. I gave it 4.5 stars, I believe. These Heathens came out in 2025, which I think is still a great summertime book option if you need one. And then The Summer We Got Free came out in 2012. So, there's quite a bit of space between these two books, but I just wanted to read another book of hers. So, I think it fits perfectly into the theme of today's video. I'm reading that right now. I don't know. It just seemed like it was giving me such a hard time to buy a physical copy, so I just bought it on Kindle. The first chapter starts off in the '7s. So far the good times feel. I'm going to continue reading and to be back to check in. I just wanted to let you know that that is what we're reading. So I'll be back with an update in a bit. I have to face this way because I don't have any lamps on this side of the room. All of my light is coming from the kitchen and I'm a big light hater. I'm not putting on the big light. I'm so sorry. I was choking. I was choking on a Skittle and I feel like something's still stuck. So if I sound crazy then I apologize. I feel like my throat is sore because I was coughing so hard. It wasn't even like a whole Skittle, [laughter] like one of the cracks of the Skittles. And it literally feels like it just like ripped through my esophagus. Wow. I wanted to read you guys the synopsis really quickly. I keep drinking water and it's not doing anything. I wanted to wait until I got a little bit further into the book to tell you guys what it was about, but I'm going to just read you the synopsis. It says, "At one time, a wild young girl and brilliant artist Ava changes dramatically after a violent event that rocked her entire family.

[00:02:15]Once loved and respected in their community and their church, they are ostracized by their neighbors, led by their church leader, and a 17-year feud between the Delaneies and the church ensues. Ava and her family are displaced from the community, even as they continue to live within it. Trapped inside their creaky, shadowy old house, the mysterious woman arrives unexpectedly for a visit, and her presence stirs up the past and something is reignited in Ava. The indifferent woman she's become begins to give way to the wild girl and passionate artist she used to be, but not without a struggle that threatens her well-being and ultimately her life. I really didn't care what the book was about to be honest. I just really wanted to read another Mia McKenzie book. But yeah, this one does sound pretty good. These heathens and her other book that came out before this one. There's always some element of a surprise like a random guest, a random guest, a random visit, a random person. That's kind of a common theme in her books. I'm going to go ahead and read now. Like I said, I'll be back to give you guys an update in a little bit.

[00:03:06][music] >> But instead of them seeing us fighting villains in the street, we all villains at this [music] level. All we're trying to do is unite. And right now as a year, we got a million people that's [music] listening. Now we can tell them something.

[00:03:21][music] >> Now we can tell them something.

[00:03:24]Sylvester.

[00:03:26][music] [music] [music] Hi guys. I didn't make it much farther into the book. I'm only 7% into the book right now. I just wanted to say it doesn't really have a plot right now.

[00:03:51]We're just following the characters, which is usually how fiction goes, which is fine. I'm not immediately hooked into it like I was her last book. I'm taking it easy, but right now I am trying to concentrate and focus and make sure that I continue to read it because at the point that I am right now in reading, any little thing will distract me and make me put a book down. So, we have the point of views of Ava. Ava is our main character. And then we also have the point of views of her dad. We're learning about her dad and her mom's relationship, her dynamic with her sister. There's a stranger that just came to the house. So, that is about to be something else with her and her husband. It kind of is starting to slowly unfold and peique my interest.

[00:04:27]So, that's kind of where we're at. I'm going to continue to read now for a few more hours and hopefully get like halfway in. So, I'll be back again with another update.

[00:04:42]We all [music] [music] How pretty is that? Cute. Okay, I do have some updates on the summer. We got free. I think I told you guys last that it was going well, but that it wasn't very hot heavy, which is understandable cuz it's a fiction book. That's normal.

[00:05:17]But now I'm 49% basically 50% into the book. And I am enjoying myself more than I realized I was. It's not thrilling.

[00:05:26]It's not suspense and it's not mystery, but there's a lot of things to find out.

[00:05:30]We basically have our main character, Ava. She's a grown woman. She lives with her family. I think she's in her 30s.

[00:05:35]It's late 1970s and present day. And we get flashbacks to when she was a child in the early 50s. I want to say she lives with her mom, her dad, her husband, and her sister. And we know from the very beginning that she did have her twin brother that passed away.

[00:05:48]We're just now getting to the point where I'm about to find out what happened. This whole time, it's just been a mystery. The death of her brother shook the whole family up. It changed everyone. And she kind of suffered, from what I'm getting, PTSD from his death.

[00:06:02]And she had a hard time coming back to herself. Obviously, they were twins. So, she completely changed. You're kind of learning about how she used to be as a child, which that's my favorite part of this whole book. Her flashbacks as a child are so interesting to me. She's just a very smartwitted at this point 9-year-old. She's very smart. You can't get anything past her. She does whatever she wants. You can't tell her what to do. She flies off the mouth. Other kids, they mind their manners. They know how to act in church. They don't question God. They don't question their upbringing. They don't question their elders. And she does all of those things. So, it's honestly very entertaining to read about her as a child. We're getting flashbacks of her and her brother. Her brother is very much in the house. In the flashbacks, we're learning about all of their neighbors. And I'm sorry, I'm doing a horrible job. Back in present day, her husband's sister comes to visit. I wouldn't say it's strange, but they haven't seen each other in years. So, her random visit kind of rocks the house trying to figure out who this stranger is. What does she want? And as the reader, I'm trying to figure out what the point of her is. Is she just a character that just pops up and is just going to bring all of these awakenings to everyone's personality or something?

[00:07:01]I don't really know. This is stuff in the first chapter. I'm not spoiling anything either. The main thing besides all that is that this family is completely shunned from their church.

[00:07:10]They're not allowed to go to church.

[00:07:11]Their neighbors don't talk to them. They don't have friends. They get harassed.

[00:07:14]Their house gets vandalized. We know that the church in this neighborhood and these people have something to do with all of these things. So, they have something to do with AA's personality changing. She's no longer the flamboyant young, wild, and free girl that she used to be. with them being discarded as members of this neighborhood and with her brother passing away. We know that the church is involved in all of this and we're kind of trying to figure out why, how, who, what, where, when. It's getting a lot more interesting. I think a lot of the time the 50% mark is where it could go up or downhill and for me it's going uphill. Like I find myself actually wanting to continue. I wouldn't say I was very connected at first, but I feel like I am now. The way that things are unfolding and the more that we're finding out about this family, everyone has their skeletons in their closet.

[00:07:54]Everyone has their secrets. Even though they live in this small house together, they seem like strangers. And because there's so much happening in the house, a lot of the times I would forget that the whole point is that they are shunned from their neighbors. When we get the flashbacks, they are presidents of the neighborhood. They had all these friends. Everyone gravitated towards them and towards Ava as a kid. They're like deacon, deaconess. They were involved, very involved. So, I'm just waiting to find out what happened. That pastor, don't trust him. and they allude to that from the perspective of each of them that the pastor was never to be trusted. So, I don't know what happened there yet. It really is just growing on me. It feels very different from these heathens and also very similar at the same time. That's where I am. It's taco Tuesday, so I'm about to eat some tacos.

[00:08:36]Oh, and one more thing. When it comes to books like this where it's fictional, there are usually a lot of characters involved that have a lot to do with the plot. And the introduction to those characters can sometimes be overwhelming. And I feel like she's doing a very good job of introducing every single character gently. It's easing me into all of these people. The whole neighborhood, obviously, we get a lot of the neighborhood. I appreciate that. Everyone that's mentioned is important to the story. I'm not getting names of people who don't matter. I'm not getting names just to throw names in there. Everything seems to be placed very nicely and neatly for the story.

[00:09:09]I'm going to go eat my tacos and I'll give you guys an update in a little bit.

[00:09:17]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hi guys. So, we finished The Summer We Got Free. And honestly, that book was just so good. In the beginning, I was very unsure of how I was going to feel about it because I didn't find myself fully connecting to every character, trying to figure out where this was going and what the point was. But the minute that I found out what the point was and all of the, I guess, secrets that we were trying to uncover about this family, I was very locked in. Mia Mackenzie's writing is just so impressive to me. the way that she storytells and the way that she wraps you around her story. It reminds me of Tony Morrison, a modernday Tony Morrison. This is a lot more serious than These Heathens was. This is not a comedic relief type of fiction book.

[00:10:21]You're watching this family pretty much suffer within themselves within the family within their neighborhood.

[00:10:26]There's just a lot of heaviness surrounding this family. I was rooting for them the entire time. Every single one of them. Even the characters and members of the family that are flawed. I was just rooting for all of them. There were elements of the story that I wish we dived into more, but overall I was very impressed and very satisfied with the way that it ended. I would give it like a four or 4.5. I don't know if I want to be so specific and strict on my ratings going forward. I don't know. It just feels very final and I change my mind all the time. So, it feels like in between, but I don't know, like four or 4.5. Either way, I really enjoyed it.

[00:10:58]And ultimately, the story is about dissecting each family member and figuring out what there is to learn about each family member while they kind of figure it out about themselves. There was one loose end at the very end of the book that I'm thinking about right now that was kind of like I don't know why we didn't cover that, but I mean, we kind of did and didn't cover some one of them at the end of the book. Yeah, really enjoyed that one. Um, and so now I'm ready to move on to something new. I have The Bright Years, and I was ready to read that one, but it kind of explores a lot. I don't know about a lot, but it explores another dysfunctional family dynamic, and I don't think I want to read the same thing again. I kind of want to put something between them. So, I borrowed Big Swiss from Libby. I think I want to read this. This is my comedic relief lip fick book that I'm in the mood for.

[00:11:42]Okay, so it says Big Swiss by Jen Vegan about a sex therapist transcriptionist and her affair with one of the patients.

[00:11:50]I already read like two pages and I know that it is in third person following Greta, who is our main character. Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss. As the transcriber, she's not supposed to know anyone's identity. One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss's voice in town, and they quickly become inshed.

[00:12:20]While Big Swiss is unaware that Greta has eaves dropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. [clears throat] Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she'll do anything to sustain the relationship. A fantastic, weird as hell, super funny novel. Big Swiss is both a love story and a deaf examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more. I hope it's provocative. I hope it is controversial.

[00:12:42]I hope it starts up a conversation, and I will let you know if it is. See you.

[00:12:48]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey, hey, hey.

[00:13:15]>> [music] >> I got 50 Kindle pages into Big Swiss.

[00:13:23]I'm still not at the point yet where she's met Big Swiss, but I'm learning about her.

[00:13:30]I'm learning about Greta. I'm learning about her backgrounds, learning about where she lives, her roommate/friend.

[00:13:35]She's like an older kind of nutty woman.

[00:13:38]The house that they live in, there's like random old quirks. It was built in like the 1700s. is filled with bees, paint chipping off the walls. It sounds like it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, but also not in the middle of nowhere. She says it's one cigarette to drive away from town. Right now, I'm about to get into her previous relationship, she was engaged for 10 years. It is as funny as I thought it was going to be. It's light-hearted.

[00:14:02]It's not really serious toned at all.

[00:14:04]The therapist that she works for, the one that she does the transcriptions for, he's weird. probably not even really a good therapist to be honest. I haven't really heard any good advice from him so far. Big Swiss, she sounds like a better therapist than the therapist. She sounds like she should be interviewing the therapist. She sounds like she should be giving him advice instead of taking his advice. But he has a gong in his office. He wears like fishnet clothes. Everyone's kind of offcenter. I feel like I relate to both Greta and Big Swiss depending on how you look at it. I don't look at it this way, but I could see someone reading something like this. The same thing with a lot of these books is it just barely crosses the line of being offensive. But for me, it's just not there yet. It just depends on how you look at things since therapy is involved. I think it could potentially be funny. Not that you're making fun of people, but like almost don't hate me. She signed a confidentiality agreement to not expose the stories of the sessions she's listening to. it's still anonymous and she doesn't know exactly who she's listening to, but she does know it's a small town. She'll go to the cafe, she'll go out in public and she'll hear the voices of the people that she's transcribing and she'll say he's having trouble with his wife. He's cheating on his wife and da da da and she'll start going through what their session is about. And even though she signed the confidentiality agreement, she goes back and tells Sabine. She'll tell her everything that she found out about these people and give her like funny stories about them. But that's the only person that she tells. Now that I'm up, I'm going to keep going.

[00:15:32]Hi guys, let's talk about Big Swiss. I have updates because it's actually taken me a bit to get to the point that I'm at right now. It is getting better. I was just a little bit bored. Let's back up.

[00:15:42]So, I'm 44% into Big Swiss right now.

[00:15:44]It's just taking me a bit to get through her. Greta receives these transcripts.

[00:15:49]She basically knows intimate details about everyone and no one knows who she is. So, she develops kind of an infatuation with one of the therapist clients. I only just got to the point where they've met and now they're building a friendship. And the whole book really is very quirky and weirdish.

[00:16:04]Their inside jokes are weird. Greta is weird. Like Greta is a weird character.

[00:16:08]She has word vomit. This new friendship that she has with Big Swiss, she's the first person to understand her humor and roll with the punches. Everyone else kind of side eyes her. It's not overly weird. It's just like kind of right at the cusp of being that. So, I'm not put off by it by any means, but there are certain things that the author will go into detail about that I'm just like, I don't care about any of this. The author has a tendency to make a character out of nothing. The dog is a character. The house is a character. She'll go into detail about a blanket. It's told in a way where everything is important and everything isn't important. So, it kind of takes me out of it a little bit. When I hear about this house and the weird things that happen in this house, the bugs that are in this house, how old the house is. I don't care about stuff like that. There's just a lot of emphasis on the setting and not as much on the plot.

[00:16:55]So far now I'm at the point where I can see it going somewhere and we're making progress, but right now it's sitting right around a 3.5 for me to be almost halfway in. Big Swiss and her personality is my favorite part. I do like Greta and all her weirdness. Her sense of humor does make up for how detailed some things are. Big Swiss on the other hand, I like Big Swiss a lot.

[00:17:17]Her personality, again, I feel like I say this in a lot of my reading vlogs.

[00:17:20]When I find a character similar to characters like this, she's very cold, very detached. She has trauma, which we hear about in her meetings with the therapist. Very detailed trauma that they get into. Um, so I liked that. I like all of the therapy sessions. That's one of my favorite parts to read about with this book, as well as the therapy sessions with anyone. When it comes to the humor, I think Greta and Bigswiss both are too smart for everyone else around them. Their humor is smart humor, a darker humor. The book is going well.

[00:17:48]Greta and Big Swiss's friendship is based on a lie. Greta lied about herself. She didn't really want to be connected to the therapist because she's not supposed to know anything about these people. So, that's my update for now. I feel like was a little bit all over the place, but right now I'm just trying to figure out what direction we're going in. Yes, fiction is fiction, but I also feel like fiction has to have at least one thing. I feel like it has to have plot-wise something for me to look forward to. It can be a character study. It can be all about the characters. Yes, it can do that. But I feel like the best fiction books also have like a little bit of something else. like there's a mystery that we're trying to uncover. Romance, there has to be some other thing and I don't see any other thing in this book right now besides characters. And I don't think I'm as connected to the characters as I would need to be for this to be enough.

[00:18:29]So, that's what I'm trying to figure out and I will let you guys know how that goes. Maybe closer to the end cuz I don't see this book being one that I need to update you guys every couple chapters on. So, I might come back when I'm done. I don't know. [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> I think it's important to note that the friendship between Swiss and Greta is very intense from the second they meet.

[00:19:14]It's intense. Obviously, I told y'all that Greta knows all of these intimate details about Swiss and her marriage and her sex life, just her as a person. And then when they meet, Swiss is already an intense person on her own. Swiss is asking about her sexuality. She's dissecting her personality. She's like, "Have you always been a people pleaser?"

[00:19:33]So, Swiss is very invasive from the beginning, crossing boundaries, some line that may exist somewhere.

[00:19:40]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> We're starting the bright years. I wanted to quickly tell you guys what it's about. Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married and now parents to a baby girl, Geette. But Lillian has a son she hasn't told Ryan about. And Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn't told Lillian about. So Geette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall. When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Geette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian's son comes searching for his birth family. So Geette must return to her roots, unear her family's history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them or herself. while there's still time. So, it's told from three different points of view. I don't know whose yet, but it seems like the book mostly follows Geette, the daughter. So, it sounds pretty good. This is a very popular book. I feel like this quality looks like but in my camera. I was watching old videos of mine. I must have done something to my camera because now the quality doesn't look as good. And I used to have the softening effect on and now I don't. So, if you see it softening, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to test something and see if it works.

[00:21:06]Maybe I factory reset it back to what it used to be, but I have no idea. So, yeah, let's get started reading this.

[00:21:10]I'm out by the pool, probably only for a second because it could start raining any minute. Atlanta has been raining so ridiculously. Meanwhile, New York is 80° and sunny, no rain in the forecast, and hasn't had rain in like 2 weeks. I don't know what's going on down here. We're going to start the bright years and I will let you know how it's going in a little bit. [music] You need it. [music] [music] [music] [music] You need to know.

[00:22:09][music] >> [music] [music] >> Okay, so here's what I know so far. This is a very easy book to read. There's a lot of quotable things in this book.

[00:22:50]Very subtle ways that the author explains something or references something that sticks in your brain a little bit. The characters that I've met so far, we have point of views from Lillian and Ryan. Both of them are easy to I wouldn't say like so far, but understand. Knowing what I know about Ryan makes it a little hard for me to let my guard down with him. And same thing with her. Knowing what I know about their relationship, it makes it difficult for me to let my guard down this early in the book. So, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I've already seen glimpses of his anger, anger issues that he probably has because he's an alcoholic. I saw peaks of it, but right now they're just buttering him up and making him look saintish. They're making their love story from the beginning seem very quick and moves very fast. The very first page is a glimpse into Ryan's childhood. It's 1958 in the very beginning of the book, the day that him and his mom left his dad because his dad was an alcoholic.

[00:23:40]It's very, very easy to read and it's very short. I don't even think it's 300 pages. So, I'm going to continue to read. I'm only on page 20. They don't number the chapters, so I don't know what chapter I'm on, but maybe like four or five. [music] [music and singing] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hi guys, we're back and I'm going to make this quick because I want to go back and finish reading this book. It's a little bit later. I just got to page 100, that's chapter 1997 where I'm at in the book. Geette or Jette, I think she's around 11 right now. I can't remember.

[00:24:54]I'm very surprised at how much she's fitting into these chapters, into these pages, into these sentences emotionally and plot-wise, and it's such a short book. Like, I'm almost halfway done with the book at this point. I just want the best for everyone. I am growing attached to these three, to this family, and I just want everything to end well. I want to see a comeback. I think I hate the filter. I would just say that Ryan is going through a tough time, and what I do want is Ryan's point of view. We've been primarily in Lillian's point of view this whole time and I really want Ryan's point of view while he's going through what he's going through.

[00:25:28]Something pretty significant just happened to his side of the family and we don't have any insight. So, I'm not loving that. I do want more of him. I'm always very impressed with any short book. any short book that produces this much emotional impact this quickly. I'm always very impressed by it without spoiling anything because I honestly I know I've already said a lot, but I wish I would have gone into this blind because the things that we know from the back would have been surprising for me to know about because of the way that it starts. But I will check back in with you guys in a little bit. But right now, everything that everyone's saying that's positive is true. This book is really good so far. Surprising me in a way because I didn't think that it would live up to the hype, but so far it's doing that.

[00:26:14]This one looks pretty strong.

[00:26:22][music] [music] You waited. [singing] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> You made it.

[00:27:52]Wow.

[00:27:55]So, I think that was five stars. That was a really, really, really good book.

[00:27:58]It wrapped up amazingly. Again, the writing was just something very different. Anything about dads and grandfathers, grandparents, that kind of hits home. Dads especially, though, I really felt this one. No, five stars for sure. I don't even know. I feel like this is one that you really have to experience for yourself. I think it touches on a lot of topics that a lot of people could relate to. I don't have personal experiences as far as addiction goes, but it's not that you have to necessarily go through something or witness something firsthand to relate to it or feel an emotional impact towards it. The story kind of just wraps itself around you. And I feel like that's what this book does. I felt every single character in that book. I felt for every single character in that book. It does a really good job of giving you the perspectives of all the characters. The progression, the pacing, everything was just I have nothing bad to say about this book to be honest. My battery is about to die. I'm just going to leave it at that. What I didn't tell you guys, I did read the acknowledgements about the author on the back. So, this is Sarah Deoff's first book. So, I will be anxiously waiting for her second one because she has something that I really appreciate in authors when it comes to me. Five stars basically goes on story, pacing, characters, writing style, and she hit every single one of them. Hi guys. So, I finished Big Swiss, and honestly, that was just such a strange book. I think it ended pretty good, but overall it just wasn't my favorite. And I should have known this from the back.

[00:29:17]Honestly, I watched myself read the back of the book and I'm like, "How did you forget any of this, but because I forgot the synopsis on the back, it kind of went in a direction that I didn't want it to go." I kind of wanted it to stay an obsessive friendship and it turned romantic and it turned lusty and it turned into an affair. This is all in the back. It completely went over my head and I wasn't prepared for it because it took me a while to get through this book. I was bored more than I was entertained, which is where my issue is coming from. I don't think it's going to stick with me and I don't think that I'm really going to remember it after a while. It doesn't have the same impact on me as the other two books in this video had. Yeah, I just wanted to come wrap up Big Swiss because I kind of skipped past my wrap-up on that one and I didn't film an outro. So, this is that, too. But yeah, it was okay. If you don't like the cheating trope, then I wouldn't read this at all because it's the main plot of this whole book. Meh.

[00:30:06]Not my favorite. I guess I would give it like a three because I did like the characters. I just didn't really love how everything became a character. Like I said in my other update and it got worse from there in Anime objects like everything was a character. Everything needed a very detailed description. The best part about it to me was the actual transcripts reading it and the interview style. I love that it made it go by faster and it was good. Would I recommend? I don't know if I would recommend it even the same as a lot of these fiction books. I don't know if I would outright recommend it to everyone walking by. But if you come across it like I guess give it a try. The audio book was okay. I put audio books in me.

[00:30:37]We're still introducing ourselves to each other. I just keep saying I don't know because I don't I just don't.

[00:30:42]Sometimes you just don't know. It just didn't leave a lasting impression. We can just move on from here. So the next summer of I don't know what theme we're going to go for next. I'm really really really really in the mood for a fantasy book. Like I'm dying dying dying for a fantasy book. So I think I might go that route. So I will talk to you guys in the next summer video.