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Thirteen-year-old Abby lives in an unhappy home in the Sierra Nevada foothills. One day, Abby rescues a litter of seven puppies abandoned for dead and leaves them in an abandoned cabin, promising to return the next day. When grieving widower Elliot retreats to the hunting cabin he last visited years ago, he discovers seven puppies and one determined girl with an indomitable heart. As the two become friends, Abby imagines how much better life would be if her mother were married to Elliot instead of her father. Read Seven Perfect Things by Catherine Ryan Hyde.
Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. I’m coming fresh off a very restful Memorial Day weekend full of nature, cocktails, accidental naps, and reading. I can’t believe it’s already June! In light of this summertime feeling, we’re talking road trip novels today.
To the club!!
Nibbles and Sips
I’ve been on a serious meatball kick lately—they’re so easy to toss together and one batch goes a long way. These sticky Asian meatballs look much fancier than they really are and taste so wonderful over some jasmine rice topped with scallions and sesame seeds. If you don’t mind turning the ol’ oven on as temperatures get a little toasty (for some), make these for the club as a main or even a starter/finger food.
Hop In, Book Nerds
The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary
I just finished this chaotic, funny, and heartwarming road trip romance in a day and can’t stop raving about it! Four years ago, Addie and Dylan spent the summer falling in love under the Provence sun. He was a wealthy Oxford student and she a wild-child working as a caretaker at their friend Cherry’s enormous villa, and they were a perfect match…until they weren’t. Now their lives have collided most comically: while on their way to Cherry’s wedding, Dylan and Addie’s cars crash at the start of the journey. With one car wrecked and time a’ticking, Addie and her sister Deb find themselves agreeing—albeit begrudgingly—to drive Dylan and his best friend Marcus to the rural Scotland wedding. Things so super smoothly…not! (tw: sexual assault, non-graphic)
Book Club Bonus: How do you cut ties with a relationship that perhaps no longer serves you, even if doing so would crush the other person? What is there are other factors to consider: age? mental illness? Do you stick around out of obligation, or loyalty? Also: would you have forgiven Marcus? Why or why not? DISCUSS (I have feelings).
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
A nameless mother and father set out on a cross-country trip from New York City to Arizona in the heat of summer. They’re both documentarians; he’s recording sounds at Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home, and she hopes to return to New York after the journey is complete to finish up a project involving missing child refugees. The road trip brings the couple and their two young children face to face with the immigration crisis at the southwestern border in an intimate, low-key hilarious, and urgent examination of marriage and parenthood.
Book Club Bonus: Who immediately comes to mind when you read “lost children” in the book title? What are the sources of conflict between the husband and wife? And why do the characters go mostly unnamed? Discuss the role of a documentarian and how it serves to further the message of the book.
The Wangs vs. The World by Jade Chang
Charles Wang is a lovable business man with a giant cosmetics empire to his name, until the financial crisis takes everything from him. Broke and out of options, he pulls his kids—aspiring comedian Andrew and fashionista Grace—from the schools he can no longer afford in the one family car that hasn’t been repossessed. Together with their wealth-addicted stepmom Barbra, they embark on one helluva road trip from Bel Air to upstate New York where the Wangs will hide away in their eldest daughter’s home before their next move. I’ve had this on my TBR forever and reading the premise again just now gave me major Schitts Creek vibes mixed with some Little Miss Sunshine.
Book Club Bonus: How does this story differ from other immigrant stories you may have read? How is it also the same?
Suggestion Section
June book club picks from Today with Jenna Bush Hager and Good Morning America—and can I just say that I am VERY excited about both of these reads!
I like this suggestion: start a family book club this summer.
Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.
Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa