Any recommendation for a book that has the sweet ache of summer? Or a book that really moved you. That has an undercurrent of pain but you loved reading it. > Likes and Comments

Sorry for being vague, but I don't know how else to describe these books. The closest I can come up with is happy-sad. For example, 'Call me by your name', 'On earth we are briefly gorgeous', 'Normal People', and 'The Bastard of Istanbul' are some of my favourite books, and I have been chasing a similar feeling for a long time. These books have the brightness of summer with a mild heartache. Based on this gibberish, if you are able to understand what I am talking about (because I myself can't), can you recommend me some books, please?

Meet Me in the Garden, Darius the Great is Not Okay

It is an old book but great
The All Girls Filling Station by Fannie Flagg

The All Girls Filling Station by Fannie Flagg

This One Summer (graphic novel)

The Mountain Pass series, is really good. Just read the 4th book in the series. Find it on Amazon.

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

4☆ The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter by Linda Scarpa. Amazingly, this memoir is more horrifying than the film! It's written and narrated by Greg Scarpa's daughter, Linda, and Greg's longtime love, Linda Rosencrance.
*On 9/6/26, I saw the movie "By Any Means," starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the Black FBI agent (this FBI agent is totally fictitious) and Mark Wahlberg as Greg Scarpa, known in the Mafia as the "Grim Reaper," a brutal hitman for the Columbo crime family.
*Please understand that Scarpa remained a racist during his paid work in the Civil Rights era. The memoir says that in 1986, at age 58, Scarpa needed a blood transfusion due to bleeding ulcers. He refused hospital blood banks because he didn't want to take chances receiving 'Negro' blood. He received only his own crew's donated blood; it was HIV-contaminated, which progressed to AIDS from his own crew member, and eventually ended his life in 1994 at age 66.
*In Mississippi, Scarpa acted solo, without handlers. He enjoyed killing and malevolence.
*According to his daughter, Linda, her family considered him a loving dad who would stop his daily 'business' at his Wimpy Boys Social Club with his crew to be home for their 5 pm dinner.
*Wahlberg's portrayal of Scarpa is spot-on, based on the memoir and footage. He stopped counting his murder victims after 50 souls long before he worked for the FBI.
*The movie focuses on the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover's directive, recruiting and paying Scarpa $158,000 over 26 years to use his ultra-violent, no-holds-barred method of witness interrogation to assist the Bureau during the fight for Civil Rights. *Nevertheless, in Mississippi, Scarpa succeeded in finding(1) where the bodies of three male voter registration workers could be found and (2) attaining the names of 14 Ku Kluk Klansmen involved in the 1966 murder of Vernon Dahmer Sr., an NAACP official, who was paying the $2.00 voting poll tax for blacks.
*The family of Vernon Dahmer Sr. disavows this movie, stating its inaccuracies and the commercialization of his death.

I am unsure what level of intensity you are speaking of … but The Summer I turned Pretty book of three is wonderful. Also, the Off Campus Series (4 books) are great and To all the boys I’ve loved before series is also pretty good.

My novel, Phoenix Rising, Lemuria Down is such a book.

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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - My Review