July 30th is International Day of Friendship, a special occasion to celebrate the relationships and bonds that tie us together. Accessible through the Library’s OverDrive collection, these reads highlight the beauty of nurturing community, the joys and challenges of friendship, and how to nurture deeper connections.
- Dear Wendy - Ann Zhao. "Dear Wendy's Sophie and Jo, two aromantic and asexual students at Wellesley College, engage in an online feud while unknowingly becoming friends in real life, in this dual POV Young Adult contemporary."
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin. “Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before.”
- Holes - Louis Sachar. “Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes.”
- It's Not All Downhill From Here - Terry McMillan. “When an unexpected loss turns her world upside down, Loretha will have to summon all her strength, resourcefulness, and determination to keep on thriving, pursue joy, heal old wounds, and chart new paths. With a little help from her friends, of course.”
- Miss Meteor - Tehlor Kay Mejia & Anna-Marie McLemore. “There hasn’t been a winner of the Miss Meteor beauty pageant who looks like Lita Perez or Chicky Quintanilla in all its history. But that’s not the only reason Lita wants to enter the contest, or her ex-best friend Chicky wants to help her. The road to becoming Miss Meteor isn’t about being perfect; it’s about sharing who you are with the world—and loving the parts of yourself no one else understands.”
- Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close - Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman. “An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society's most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.”
- Friendshipping: The Art of Finding Friends, Being Friends, and Keeping Friends - Jenn Bane & Trin Garritano. “Navigating the world of adult friendships can be a real challenge when everyone is busy, overwhelmed, or too often too far away. Here to help are Jenn Bane and Trin Garritano, the duo behind the cult favorite podcast Friendshipping. Insightful, empathetic, and just a touch irreverent, Jenn and Trin give readers the tools they need to make new friends and revitalize the quality of existing friendships.”
- Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World - Kate Johnson. “Grounded in the Buddha’s teachings on spiritual friendship, Radical Friendship shares seven strategies to help us embody our deepest values in all of our relationships… Kate Johnson brings a fresh take on time-honored wisdom to help us connect more authentically with ourselves, with our friends and family, and within our communities.”