Summer Reading 2025:

Summer Reading

Future AP Lit students will read and annotate two texts this summer–a novel and excerpted chapters from a nonfiction text. **There will be an assessment on these texts at the end of the third week of school. At that time, please be prepared to show your annotated novel.

Below are descriptions of the novels. Use this link for some guidance on annotation as you read. 

• Novel CHOICE: 

  • The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, is the story of Gogol Ganguli and his family. It centers largely on Gogol and his conflicts over his own identity, rooted primarily in his feelings about his own name, but also in his experience as the American-born child of Indian parents. It is in part a coming-of-age story, but follows Gogol through his adult years as he struggles with his name, his generational and cultural conflicts with his parents, his vision of what America is, and his romantic relationships.

  • The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is narrated by its protagonist, Amir, and begins by setting up a flashback to his childhood in Afghanistan. For Amir, the “face of Afghanistan” is his friend and servant, Hassan, yet he betrays Hassan in a way that traumatizes Hassan and scars Amir himself. Amir’s path to redemption spans his move to America, which should be his fresh start except that he can’t forget his sins, and a return to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and a devastating confrontation. ***CW: This novel includes some strong content.

  • The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nahesi Coates, is a surrealist story set in the pre-Civil War South, concerning a superhuman protagonist named Hiram Walker who possesses photographic memory, but who cannot remember his mother, and, late in the novel, is able to transport people over long distances by using a power known as "conduction". (Wikipedia)