Reviews: Great summer reads with social media extras

TAMPA, Fla. - For a good summer reading list, look no further than ‘book-fluencer’ Betty Cayouette of Betty's Booklist on Instagram and TikTok. 

Betty says she has loved reading for a long time, but it wasn’t always easy. 

"I have always loved stories. But as a little girl, I actually had a lot of trouble learning to read to begin with. But once it clicked, after a few years of struggling, I became a voracious reader have been reading ever since," she said.

Betty became a book-fluencer through her unique online video reviews. 

"I started with these videos where I act out the plot of the book in the first person. I pretend I'm actually the character in the book. And then I revealed that this book by this person, which is a great way of getting people who might think they're not interested in a book or reading, into the book." 

Her third video went viral and became a social media snowball. Now she’s working on her own novel.

When she’s not writing or creating for social, she’s still reading. Here are three books Betty thinks would make great summer reads:

"Every Summer After" 

Betty says: "This is a great book because it's about two friends who fell in love as kids over the course of six summers. So, we see them each of those six summers and then we see them again in adulthood when they reconnect and have to decide whether there's still something there, so it's really fun to see them [have] that second chance romance."

"My Summer Darlings"

Betty says: "This book is about three women at the heat of summer who are all taken in by the new man who moves to town and he completely disrupt their life. And let me say This is a thriller but set against this amazing, dreamy summer backdrop."

In her Instagram video for "My Summer Darlings," Betty gives readers and watchers a taste of the action.

"This book actually opens up with an unidentified woman running for her life in the woods. So I made my video like that. I took my phone, held it up and pretended," she said.

"The Cheat Sheet"

Betty says it’s a romance novel, but so much more. 

"Super steamy, between a football player and his best friend and ex ballerina. And that concept alone is everything -- friends to lovers at its finest. 

Betty was not paid to review these books. She was given copies for a fair and honest review.