My 5-Star Book Recs from This Summer

The host of Girly Girl read eighteen or nineteen books this summer, and she's sharing the ones she gave five stars to. She's upfront about her criteria: a five-star rating doesn't mean a book is objectively good or award-worthy. It means she found it entertaining and couldn't put it down. She compares reading to watching TV — it's entertainment, not education — and she's fine with that. The episode is organized around six recommendations, followed by practical advice for building a reading habit.

The Fantasy Reads That Dominated Her Summer

The host's strongest enthusiasm is reserved for fantasy, and she read three series in particular. The first is The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent, which she describes as "if the Hunger Games involved only vampires." It's an enemies-to-lovers story set in a tournament where the human heroine, adopted by a vampire king, must compete against the most vicious warriors from three vampire kingdoms. The host emphasizes that the two main characters genuinely hate each other — not the fake version of enemies-to-lovers where they're clearly attracted from page one. She read the second book immediately and says it was even better than the first.