Books like The Swell Season: A Text on the Most Important Things in Life

After seeing The Swell Season in concert and discovering that they had named their band after this book, I simply had to read it. It was an engaging little book, not life-changing by any means, but definitely charming. The protagonist, Danny, is adorable in his teenage tomfoolery and, somehow, inexplicably, despite his failure with each of the twenty-plus girls he presents as the loves of his life, manages to charm, simply through his unwillingness to give up. Danny might have his moments of insincerity, but in the end you see through the adolescent tomfoolery into the charming innocence behind him, which is presented in stark contrast to the looming events of World War II, and somehow the idea of the “swell season” begins to make sense.