Are “Beachy Reads” Too Cliquey?

Why summer reading has some readers feeling left out

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Summer might be hanging on by a thread, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t time to find that perfect summer read. Whether you’re planning a last-minute getaway or soaking up the last rays of summer sunshine at the neighborhood pool, pack a beach read or pool book and escape into another world for a while.

While vacation reading has been a popular pastime for book lovers for decades, the phrase “beach read” has only recently gained traction as a book marketing tool. According to an article by Michelle Dean published in The Guardian, the beach read is a phrase that was coined in the 1990s by book trade publications such as Publisher’s Weekly. Over the years, popular beach reads have been easy to spot with their colorful cover art and playful fonts. Examples of 2021’s marketed beach reads on Amazon include titles such as Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation, and Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner.

But has beach marketing edged other books out of the game? What does a “beachy” read really mean?

While some may argue that the beach read category is a pointless category that’s only meaningful to publishers clamoring to get mass-market attention for new releases, others stand by the genre, especially readers. After all, the genre wouldn’t exist if there weren’t readers eager to spend their money on books marketed in this way.

The typical beach read is touted as having charming characters, a memorable setting (no, it doesn’t have to be a beach), and a fast-moving, hugely entertaining plotline. Books that have traditionally fallen into this category give the reader permission to escape and not be weighed down by heavy subject-driven plotlines. At least, that’s how a typical beach read is marketed to women readers.

Thus, The Problem With the “Beach-Read” Genre

Its implicit sexism is as stifling and thick as a humid summer’s day. Beachy reads are often marketed as women’s fiction, a genre that isn’t known to get the same critical attention that other books get, namely those written by male authors. Books in this genre repeatedly are described as light reads that require little…