Book tips: These are the 19 best books for summer 2021

That's why "His name was Annabel" is a GLAMOR book tip

Intersexuality is completely excluded from our society. With the exception of a few novels like “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Euginides, it is no different in literature. “His Name Was Annabel” sheds light on a gender issue that is often swept under the table by affected families, but which should be openly and honestly discussed in 2021.

Mother-daughter novel: “A Kingdom Exalted” by Yaa Gyasi

Gifty is a neurosurgeon and grew up in Alabama as a child of Ghanaian immigrants. Her father abandoned the family when she was a child, her brother died from drugs when Gifty was a teenager. Her mother fell into a deep depression because she couldn't cope with the loss of the two. Gifty nursed her and made a fresh start at Harvard, which she successfully continues in a lab at Stanford University in California. Her life is shaped by science, which is constantly in conflict with the tradition of her strictly religious family home. Can addiction and depression and thus suffering and grief be cured or even prevented with the help of neuroscience?

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"A Kingdom Exalted" by Yaa Gyasi

When her mother becomes severely depressed again, Gifty takes care of her in California. And with the mother's presence, Gifty ponders more about her family, past, religion, science and life as black people in the United States.

That's why "A Sublime Kingdom" is a GLAMOR book tip

Yaa Gyasi's book tells of an extraordinary mother-daughter relationship: tradition, religion and family history are analyzed and questioned in depth and objectively. Religion vs. science, family vs. self-actualization and right in the middle there is a bond between mother and daughter that cannot be easily cut. The fact that Gifty makes it her life's work to cure her family's diseases with pure science makes her flee from religious escapism to fact-driven escapism. And who actually heals Gifty? A great, sometimes almost philosophical novel about the principle "Live and let live".

The summer book 2021: "The Great Summer" by Ewald Arenz

Shortly before the summer holidays, Frieder falls in love with Beate, just as he is about to pinch on the 7.5m board. Frieder also finds out shortly before the summer holidays that he has to take math and Latin exams, meaning that his family vacation with his parents and four siblings is canceled for him. Instead, he is supposed to prepare for the exams with his authoritarian grandfather, whom he had to use in his formal name until he was ten years old. Great! Frieder's allies this summer are his best friend Johann, his sister Alma, who is also skipping her family vacation for an internship - and Beate, the girl from the diving tower in a bottle-green bathing suit.

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"The Great Summer" by Ewald Arenz

What Frieder does not suspect at the beginning of the summer holidays: These summer holidays will be different from all the others before. First love, disappointment, betrayal and hellish fear, trust, death and friendship characterize Frieder's six weeks of freedom between being seated and being examined. A great summer indeed.

That's why "The Big Summer" is a GLAMOR book tip

Ewald Arenz tells of youth, of youthful disobedience and mischief - of the stories that we all bring to our heads over and over again in adulthood because they have shaped us and define us. His Frieder is like all of us were: young and on the lookout, loving freedom and yet not quite fledgling. In addition, in his coming-of-age novel he tells so impressively about the drizzle at the outdoor pool and the shadows that get longer and longer over the course of August that we had the feeling while reading that we were standing on the seven and a half hand in hand with Frieder jump: in a great summer.

About summer in Greece: “Only here are we unique” by Christine Avel

Niso, Evi, Zac and the narrator are a group of children who spend their summers together on a Greek island since childhood. Her parents work as archaeologists, the children roam around the excavations for weeks on end and every summer they discover something new in their magical parallel world on the island, which is so different from their everyday life in Italy and France. On their own, they dive in the sea for days, scrape their knees, make friends with the locals, fall in love - slowly growing up. They are a tight-knit group – until one summer something happens and the quartet's childhood ends abruptly.

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"Only here are we unique" by Christine Avel

Years later, they nostalgically look back on all those summers gone by, revealing what is and what was, and realizing that some things from childhood stay with you into adulthood. “Only here are we unique” tells in poetic language and with a lot of love for observations as only children can do, about childhood and youth summers spent together, in which one might have wished to stop time.