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EXCLUSIVE: Yara Shahidi Tells Us How She’s Spending Her Summer

... and it's not at all how you think!

Remember when our forever POTUS Barack Obama released his favorite reads at the close of 2018? Well, we’ve been wondering what’s on our favorites’ reading lists ever since, and when we learned The Sun Is Also a Star actress Yara Shahidi was stopping by the BET offices on her promo tour for the film adaption of the critically acclaimed book, we decided to pick her brain about her summer reading list.

It’s no secret that the 19-year-old is well read. She frequently talks about her love of all things James Baldwin-related and can probably deliver her own TED Talk on what books we should have in our Kindle libraries. (Don’t worry, we asked that too!) Obviously, The Sun Is Also a Star made the cut because, well, not only is she the movie’s leading lady, but it’s also one of the top young adult novels of her generation.

(Photo by Rich Fury/FilmMagic)

Photo by Rich Fury/FilmMagic

(Photo by Rich Fury/FilmMagic)

“I mean, I’m biased, but The Sun Is Also a Star, I do have to say. I hope people read the book because it’s such a beautiful [interpretation]. Whether you watch the movie first or whether you’ve already read the book; I think it’s like such a great pairing because there’s so many things that the movie does a little differently as well so many things that the book really goes into depth about that’s really, like, incredibly written,” Yara told BET exclusively.

Surprisingly (or not-so-surprisingly, if you’ve ever witnessed her deliver a speech), the other reads that made it onto Yara’s lists don’t fall into the YA category at all. Oh, and fun fact: She leaves books in her Amazon cart like the rest of us bookworms.

If you’re at all intrigued to know what books the Grown-ish star plans on diving into this summer or just in need of some recommendations from a book aficionado, watch the video below on Yara spilling the tea on her favorite reads:

Watch Yara Shahidi starring in "The Sun Is Also a Star" in theaters nationwide now.

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