Ever since I was young, I’ve loved a good friendship story — the kind that feels like one long heart-to-heart with a kindred spirit. And when the friends have a shared goal that invites readers in on the fun? Even better.
Books about friends helping each other through life’s ups and downs make for perfect summer reading: comforting yet powerful. They remind us we’re never as alone as we feel. They keep us good company. Sometimes, they challenge us to look at things a different way. To wrestle with life’s big questions behind the safe lens of fiction.
That’s how I felt as I was writing my new novel, The Quitters Club. It begins with four ride-or-die friends who reunite for a 40th
birthday getaway — but each has been quietly reevaluating something big back home. How long to stick things out in a career that’s not what you’d expected? How long to keep trying to become a mom when your body won’t cooperate? In everyday choices, big and small, how does anyone know when to hang on and when to let go? Surely it can’t really be true what they say … that quitters never win?
When the women make a pact to finally quit the things making them unhappy and help each other through the fallout, they set out to prove it’s never too late to start over. Because the way they say it, quitting doesn’t always mean giving up. Sometimes, you have to find the courage to say no — so you can say yes to something even better.
Here are seven other empowering summer reads about friends who make each other a promise to stay true to themselves.
The Insomniacs by Allison Winn Scotch
It starts with strangers who meet in an online forum for people who can’t sleep. But once they agree to meetups at an all-night diner, the eclectic bunch — an empty-nesting mom, an injured Major League pitcher, an ailing retiree and an aspiring actress — bonds IRL over pancakes and exhaustion. When one of them goes missing, working together to solve the mystery could be the key to finally getting a good night’s rest.
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
In this fresh take, five college friends make a pact to throw each other living “funerals” when they need reminders that their lives have been worth something. Why wait until you’re gone to hear about the impact you’ve had on the people around you? Twenty-eight years later, they reconnect for a reunion like none other. The result is Rowley at his witty, moving and compassionate best.
Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey
In a former bed-and-breakfast on the Southern coast, single moms with no one to lean on come to count on each other. What starts with a cast of down-on-their-luck characters evolves into a kind of found family: They share dinners, raise their children together and withstand their fair share of gossip about their “mommune” … all by committing to follow the same house rules.
The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
In the 1960s, four housewives start a book club where Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique inspires them to form a sisterhood that goes far deeper than the neighborhood coffee clatch. Nicknaming themselves the Bettys and questioning their role in “the American dream” for the first time, they embark on a transformative journey in reading, feminism and friendship.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
While this modern-day classic is classified as a Young Adult novel, at its heart is a coming-of-age story that women of all ages enjoy. When four friends are set to spend a summer apart, they make a last-minute vow to stay connected through a pair of thrift shop jeans that miraculously fits them all. As the jeans travel from one girl’s adventure to the next, they experience first love, self-love and the gift of unconditional friendship that never hangs you out to dry.
The Summer Pact by Emily Griffin
After tragedy strikes amid their college graduation, three surviving dormmates make a pact to always be there for one another in times of need, no matter how far apart life takes them. Their loyalty is tested 10 years later when one of them is again dealing with an unthinkable shock — and each finds herself at a crossroads of her own.
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
In the irresistible setup for this rom-com, two plutonic best friends have very different approaches to just about everything. But every summer, no matter what, they promise to set aside one week to take a trip together, making a decade’s worth of jet-setting memories … until the vacation that changes everything between them.