The L.A. Summer Reads That Should Be On Your Radar

FULL SUMMER IS UPON us. It’s time for bespoke ice, Dodger games, and beach reads. And for the quarterly installment of our book roundup, in which we scour the publishing landscape for the most noteworthy books that are about Los Angeles, or set in Los Angeles, or by Los Angeles authors — or, sometimes, all three.

By Mary H.K. Choi

Mary H.K. Choi, a longtime journalist and sometime Angeleno, rocketed to publishing fame with a series of young adult novels that became bestsellers: Emergency Contact, Permanent Record, and Yolk. This summer, she made her adult debut, with Pool House. This mother-daughter tale begins with Stevie, the daughter, rounding a corner at Ralphs and watching a stranger fawn over her mother, Moon, an aging but still semi-famous actress. Stevie and Moon are forced to coexist together in the pool house behind the grand Hollywood home they can no longer afford and rent out. But when Moon’s TV-show husband dies, her TV-show son comes to town for the funeral and the three move into the Big House —and a Chekhovian level of tension, dysfunction, and drama ensue.