I get a lot of questions about the book club I belong to, which is really so much more than that. We are best friends who have been with each other through the ups and downs: divorces and marriages and remarriages and cancer and pets dying and health struggles. They are my people, and as someone who struggled for a long time to make friends, it feels surreal to have these strong bonds in my life.
Let’s do a little Q&A about my book club today, shall we?
1) How did everyone meet?
Our book club started on Meetup. When I was in my early twenties, had finished college, and was entering the workforce, I knew the one thing I wanted in my life was to belong to a book club. I found this book club for young women (ages 20-35), but it took me a full year to summon the courage to actually go. In that time, I had tried to join some other social groups, like a Tampa area bloggers meetup, and I was basically ignored at the meeting I went to, which made me apprehensive about joining this book club. But then I went to a new member’s dinner, felt immediately accepted, and the rest is history! That was in September 2012, which means I’ve been attending this book club for 14 years!
Eventually, we took the group off Meetup (ironically, a few months after I joined – good thing I didn’t wait any longer!). Now, everyone in the group either joined because of Meetup or because they knew someone who was already in book club. For example, Bri joined because we had a “new members” meeting where everyone was encouraged to bring a friend to book club. As it stands right now, we’re pretty much closed for new members and have a great group of seven women, all of whom I’ve known for a decade or longer!
2) How do we choose the books we read?
This process has evolved over the years. Here’s what we’ve been doing for the past two years: In January, everyone brings three book recommendations written down on pieces of paper. Those recommendations go into a bag. Every month, we pull three slips of paper from the bag, read the options (and the Goodreads synopsis!), and vote to select the book. We throw away the selected book, and the other two go back into the bag. If one of the books has been pulled three times but never selected, it is thrown away.
(We also use this same process to choose our book club activity every month!)
We can add books and activities to the bag throughout the year if anyone has inspiration, so it’s a very flexible system!
3) What happens at a typical book club meeting?
We are not your typical book club, as many of you have probably figured out. Every month involves some sort of activity. Our last few activities have been shuffleboard, an escape room, bedazzling, a pajama party, etc. Usually, we spend the first hour or so hanging out and catching up on life, and then at a certain point in the night, we’ll be like, “Oh, we should talk about the book!” I instituted a rule that we should go person by person, so that everyone had an opportunity to tell us what they thought, and I think that has led to some really interesting conversations. We try not to interrupt the person while they are talking, but sometimes it happens because we just get too excited to stay quiet! Some books lead to longer discussions, while others do not. We don’t try to select only books that will provide a lengthy discussion. Sometimes, we just want to read a fun domestic thriller and talk about whether or not we saw the twists coming!
4) What happens if someone doesn’t finish a book?
We do not expect everyone to finish every book. Sometimes, life gets busy and finding time to read is hard. Sometimes, we select a book, and it’s just not the right time for someone to read that book, depending on what they’re going through. Sometimes, the book just sucks, and we never expected people to read a book they hate. When this happens, the person who didn’t finish the book knows they will be spoiled by our discussion (or, if they don’t want to be spoiled, they can leave the room). We accept that’s the cost of not finishing the book!65
5) What have been some standout book club reads?
I’m going to choose five books that really made an impact with us:
- The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Ware – We still talk about this book, and we read it in 2017! It was the kind of book where we felt like, if it was fiction, we would have thought the author was being too over-the-top.
- The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin – We all loved this book so much that we named our (now-defunct) shared Instagram profile after it.
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein – This book made an impact in a bad way. I had heard so many rave reviews of this book that I kept recommending it. We finally selected it, and we all hated it. I think I was the only one who finished it; everyone else DNF’d it.
- In the Blood by Lisa Unger – This was our first introduction to local author Lisa Unger, and we still talk about that ending! It was one of the first thrillers since Gone Girl that really surprised me!
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters – I did not love this book (and most of book club gave it 3 stars or less), but it led to one of our liveliest discussions we’ve ever had, which means it was a standout for us!
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