Category: In The Club

When Koh was a teenager, her father was offered a really good position back in Korea, which he accepted. The plan was to leave her and her brother in California for three years while both her parents lived in Korea. Only, her father’s work contract kept extending, making Koh ultimately feel abandoned by her parents. After some years pass, Koh rediscovers the letters her mother had written to her in Korean when they were separate. In them, her begged her for love and to forgive her for leaving. As she sets to translating the letters, she revisits that time and others in her family’s history. She starts to see the experiences of the women in her family in new ways. The image of her mother becomes more nuanced and she begins to better understand her grandmother, who witnessed the 1948 Jeju Island massacre. Poetry further serves to help her work through her feelings of abandonment, as well as understand the intergenerational trauma present in her family.

Telesa Vasa Loloa is the otherworldly guardian of the ocean and all of Oceania who was crafted by Tongan god Tangaloa. When the island of Niua is threatened, marine biologist Daniel Tahi has to make the decision to embrace the gods of his people, or risk letting the island succumb to an ancient danger. A mutual love of the sea may unite Daniel and Telesa, and hopefully save the island in the process.

It’s not that Kareena doesn’t believe in love, it’s just that she’d rather be restoring her classic car than actively searching for a partner. That is, until her father says he’s going to sell her mom’s house and she makes a deal with him. If she gets engaged in four months, he’ll give her the house. A wrench in her plans comes in the form of Dr. Prem Verma, who is the host of the Dr. Dil Show. They get into an argument that goes viral. Now she has a man in her life, but in the worst way. The viral argument doesn’t do Dr. Verma any favors, either, since it’s messed up his plans for getting the funding to build a local community center. Kareena’s aunts come out of the cut and offer him funding for the center if only he can convince her that they were meant to be together. This is enemies-to-lovers that gets a little spicy. IYKYK.

Nell Young’s father, Dr. Young, ain’t ish. While he’s a legend in the field of cartography, he coldly fired his daughter Nell after a disagreement over what seemed at the time to be a basic gas station map. Since destroying his daughter’s reputation, Dr. Young has turned up dead in his New York Public Library Office with the very same map hidden in his desk. Naturally, Nell is curious and starts to investigate. Turns out, the map wasn’t so basic after all, and is in fact quite rare. What’s more, the map is connected to some secrets in her family and she learns of a group called the Cartographers who are willing to kill to get the map. There are some great twists, turns, and a little magic as Nell unravels the secret.

Book Club Bonus: What did you think of the reveal? Do you feel like it was plausible? Also, how did you feel about the addition of maps throughout the book?

This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and the second in a new series being published by Disney’s first adult publishing project. The first, a Cinderella retelling, was If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy. Here, Isabelle has succumbed to the quarter-life crisis I’ve noticed a lot of millennials going through. Although, I think she’s technically Gen Z, so it’s their turn, I guess.

In either case, she’s simply not where she thought she’d be at the age of twenty-five. She’s back at home with her parents and working a suffocating publishing job that doesn’t pay her enough. It also seems to be stifling her ability to become a writer, and she constantly feels doubt about whether she should speak up or silence herself as the only Black person at her publishing house. Then, she sees an opportunity to stand out at work. If she can wrangle troublesome celebrity writer Beau Towers and convince him to finish his book, maybe she can make her job less depressing. Once she finds out where he’s been hiding, she convinces him to let her stay with him to encourage him to finish writing. She realizes that Beau is actually dealing with some issues, and it turns out they have things in common. Romance readers will appreciate the sunshine/grumpy and forced proximity tropes.

Side note: I don’t know about you, but I totally did not see Disney publishing a contemporary, adult fairy tale retelling, but I’m not mad in the least.

Book Club Bonus: Beauty and the Beast has been called out by some for being problematic for encouraging women to accept and try to change toxic behavior in relationships. Discuss aspects of the story you liked and didn’t like and how this book improved or could be improved. How does it stand up to critics of the original fairy tale?

Nora is a great lover of books and a cutthroat literary agent who prides herself on getting great deals for her clients. When her sister Libby wants to take a trip to a small town as a little getaway, Nora goes, but comes across Charlie, an editor who seems to keep brooding in her general direction. He also has the nerve to be cute and funny. Pah! Charlie and Nora are two big city-loving people stuck in a small town for the time being, and have all this great, witty banter between them. As something starts to develop between them, Nora starts to give more much needed attention to the relationship with her sister.

Book Club Bonus: I liked how Nora isn’t a “typical” romance heroine, with her expensive shoes and assertive personality. Discuss what you think of how, many times, romance heroines have a “softer” personality than Nora’s.

This is a collection of the young activist’s speeches. At 15, Greta decided to skip school in Sweden to protest climate change. She’s been protesting ever since and has even been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. One thing I, and many others, appreciate about the little sis Greta— a part from her tenacity— is her straightforward manner of speaking. She doesn’t beat around the bush and is just very real about the situation we’re in.

“I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

Where’s the lie?

What’s cool about this little collection is that it clocks in at just 112 pages, so you’ll have extra time to watch the documentary I Am Greta after.

I’ve noticed how a certain group of people have started using the term “woke” as a pejorative. To me, it’s a very obvious and defensive response to a demand of accountability after there hasn’t been any for so long. You ever come across people like this and wish you had a more concise way of telling them why they’re wrong, or even explaining to anyone why “environmentalism, racism, and privilege” are inextricably linked? Here’s a primer just for that. It’s also for everyone interested in learning how best to show up for the planet. Thomas shows not only how BIPOC people are the most affected by environmental injustices, but also how truly fighting for the environment involves fighting for civil rights. What was that about an injustice anywhere being a threat to justice everywhere?

This one is a little different as it’s not just about the environment, but rather everything and the environment. Sustainability isn’t viewed as a separate thing to be worked on. Yunkaporta uses the wisdom of his Aboriginal elders to show that it’s something that could already be woven into our everyday lives if we adopt some other ways of thinking.

A few years ago, I was studying for a standardized test for grad school and there was a passage in the book I was using to study that showed how colonialism in America ruined the environment, the effects of which we can still see today (like in the Antarctic ice cores!). I was super surprised I’d never heard about it before then, but knowing it now makes me that much more receptive to Yunkaporta’s premise here. A lot of us in North America live within a culture that is rooted in a mindset that led people to rejecting and leaving their own land to destroy another. With that in mind, how could our culture be one that is inherently sustainable? It makes sense to learn about how to live in better harmony with the land from people who have been living with their lands for thousands of years (it’s estimated to be about 65,000 years).

This is another book about trees that this pair has worked on. Here, forester Wohlleben and editor Billinghurst share poetic observations on forests in North American they’ve visited, making the case of how we should spend more mindful time outside amongst the trees. We should go for walks, forage, and even become “forest detectives” who know things like what path water takes in a given landscape and the frequency of fire. By using all five senses when we’re in nature like this, the authors believe we will come to appreciate it more and find adventure more often.

So Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gets to be an NBA star, be in movies with Bruce Lee, and write Sherlock Holmes-adjacent books?! I’m not mad at it. Here, Sherlock’s brother Mycroft is newly out of college and already starting to get noticed within the British government. His world gets shaken up, though, when his friend Cyrus Douglas starts hearing about these weird things happening back home in Trinidad. There are disappearances and talks of children being led away by a lougarou (basically a werewolf) to their deaths. Mycroft and Douglas go there to get to the bottom of it.

In February 2014, Ukrainian police fired into a crowd of demonstrators, killing dozens. The protestors had been gathering for months at that point to speak out against President Yanukovych’s siding with Russia at the expense of other alliances. This book centers around Ukraine that winter by following four people: engineer Misha, who lost his wife; Slava, a young activist; Katya, a doctor treating protestors at a monastery; and Aleksandr, an ex KGB agent. The four people’s lives intersect during this time of unrest, and the story is told by a chorus of Ukrainian singers who were killed by the Russian czar. Yeah, it’s a lot in the best way.

The titular character is raised by her grandparents in Philly because her Black mother is perpetually touring with a theatre troupe, and her Jewish father has just always been gone. When she comes of age, she sets out to find her father in NYC based on a clue he left behind hinting at some grand mystery regarding her birth. This is a retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Labyrinth and is described as a funny, “feminist picaresque.” It’s a satire that’s as humorous as it is scathing.

Lydia is 23, fresh out of art school, annnd a vampire. We meet her as she’s all set to start adulting in London, having just placed her mother in a nursing home. Except it seems like nothing is really working out for her. Her internship isn’t a paying one, she’s down bad for a guy who’s dating someone else, and she can’t find fresh pig blood (her blood of choice). So she’s hungry. All. The. Time. Her solution is to stay in her studio apartment, alternating between watching videos of people eating on YouTube and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (lulz). She longs to feel a connection to other people so many experience through food that she can’r eat, and she has to work through trauma from abuse, disordered eating, and feeling isolated to be her best self.

Voter suppression is somehow still an issue in this country and Stacey Abrams has been vehemently fighting against it in her state of Georgia. Here, she confers with experts and scholars and offers her own experiences on how to empower citizens and bring voter suppression to an end. I feel like watching the work she’s been doing in Georgia has made people see how much power there can be in organizing. I also think it’s pretty cool how she writes thrillers like While Justice Sleeps. We stan a versatile Queen!

RBG! This book took 15 years to write, and Ginsburg as well as her friends and family were consulted throughout. It details the life of the 107th Supreme Court Justice, showing how influential the Justice was on laws, which was in part because of her unique perspective and experience as a Jewish American, Columbia Law student, and Rutgers professor fighting gender pay discrimination.

Sotomayor was the first Latinx person and third woman to be elected to the Supreme Court. In this autobiography, she recounts her life growing up in housing projects in the Bronx and her struggles with having a father dealing with alcoholism. She even had her own struggles with health when she was diagnosed with junior diabetes. Despite not having many professional role models to look up to, she made up her mind to become a lawyer and went on to basically be The Best, graduating from Princeton and Yale Law School with top honors. An icon, in other words.

For the first few years of my life, we lived a few hours from Memphis. Then, when I was a teenager, we moved to a town just half an hour drive from it. I also have a good college friend from there. Basically, what I’m saying is that I’ve been anxiously awaiting this book and I feel like I know the women in it.

Here, Joan, her sister, and her mother go back to their family’s home in Memphis, TN in the mid ’90s to escape her abusive father. The house they returned to was built by her grandfather, who was lynched 70 years prior. This wouldn’t be the last time violence touched Joan’s family, and the trauma from all these experiences manifest within the generations in different ways through the years. As an artist, Joan channels this trauma through her portraits of the women of North Memphis. The narrative travels through time to paint a full, and at times heartbreaking, picture of a Black, Southern family.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss Joan’s mother’s decision to move her daughters back into a house where she knew abuse had taken place.

A couple characters from Mandel’s The Glass Hotel make an appearance here, but it’s not necessary to read it before picking this one up. Mandel weaves together the stories of several people who all hear a brief moment of notes from a violin, followed by a whooshing sound. Weird, right? What’s weirder is that these people inhabit different times— a teenager is exiled from his rich, British family in 1912, a composer plays a video his late sister shot during a concert in 2020, and an author writes a pandemic novel and lives on the moon in 2203. The Time Institute of the year 2401 sends an investigator back in time to sort out the glitch that made all these people experience the same thing at different times. It sounds like a lot of moving pieces, but the narratives complement each other, coming together to make some interesting observations on existence and even pandemic living.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss investigator’s Robert’s findings. Do you think it tied the narratives together well? What do you think Mandel is trying to say about reality?

This is a follow-up to Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad  and has a few familiar characters and their children. This is another case where you don’t really have to have read the first book, though. Here, Bix is a super rich tech guy (think of one of the CEOs or founders of Twitter/Facebook/etc., except he’s Black) and develops a new platform that can hold your consciousness called “Own Your Unconscious.” Naturally, this develops into “Collective Consciousness” where people can upload their memories, which allows them to share with others who have done the same thing. As cringe as it sounds, it also low-key sounds likely to happen. Not everyone is down with sharing consciousnesses, though, and a movement rises up to counter it. Egan uses a number of different view points and chapters that have totally different narrative styles to explore just how far this social media thing can, and will, go.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss how likely you think the premise is. Do you think the platforms are possible, and if so, do you think people will really be as enthusiastic?

The stories in this collection are gathered and told by the spirits of Lagos, Nigeria. This chorus of spirits see all of the abuse and suffering going on as a result of homophobia and sexism, and people unwilling to conform to society’s rules. These outcasts, or vagabonds, in these stories are the poor, queer people who are used up by the rich with seemingly no consequences. There is hope, though. Osunde’s Lagos has devils and spirits that avenge and protect abused girls, teenagers reading about queer love and finding hope in Akwaeke Emezi novels, and a mysterious power that lets abused women find absolute escape. As gritty and real as the stories can get, the inherent magic of the Vagabonds give the city, and the collection of stories, its beauty.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss the story “Johnny Just Come” and what parallels Johnny’s predicament has to not speaking out on other issues.

So, I wasn’t just mimicking the example animal in the prompt, cats are actually my favorite animals. People who know me know I love all animals, but love-love cats. I got into a random conversation with a stranger a couple days ago (in person, which is kind of weird for me these days) and they were saying how they thought that cats were especially suited to people with lots of books since they are small and quiet (usually!). I’ve also noticed a lot of bookish people having cats rather than dogs, so I feel like ole dude was on to something. Anywho, Japan also loves cats , especially cats who love books because this book is about a cat named Tiger who pops up into socially withdrawn high schooler Rintaro’s life after his grandfather dies. As he’s in the process of mourning for his plain spoken, book loving grandfather, he’s also tasked with running his grandfather’s bookstore and preparing to go live with an aunt he’s never met. With Tiger, he goes on a quest that rivals those of mythological heroes and involves rescuing books from people who don’t seem to fully appreciate them. He learns some valuable life lessons along the way.

The last page (which is just a paragraph in the edition I came across) is f i r e. I’ll include it in the next paragraph with a spoiler warning, if you’re interested.

This is about Vern, who is pregnant with twins when she escapes from a cult and the only life she’s ever known. She hides out in the woods, killing animals as necessary and dressing her newly born babies in their hides. As she tries to survive, she realizes she’s being hunted and followed by ghosts. The superhuman changes going on in her body point her towards a truth that involves exposing the secrets of the compound she left and the horrors of how the U.S. has objectified Black bodies.

**major spoiler alert**

Here is the last page, which I think makes a good argument for reading the rest of the book:

“They both sat down, sweaty arm to sweaty arm. They remained until the woods were black but for the patches of moonlight. They remained until they could hear the night calls of one thousand living things, screaming their existence, assuring the world of their survival. Vern screamed back.”

Whew!

I don’t know anyone in real life who has a mortal enemy, but what a spicy life to live! Anyway, I asked my good friend what his least favorite book was and he said The Great Gatsby. Annnnd, I totally see where he’s coming from. He’s a program coordinator at a public library in Jersey City and he led a book club discussion through the library a few months ago where we discussed the book. When I read it a second time as an adult, I was able to find things I actually appreciated about it. Mostly, I think it’s great for providing a snapshot into what American life was like for a certain group of people in the ’20s. It also gives such great (and damning) insight into the concept and construction of whiteness. So much so, that I feel that the attitudes portrayed by the rich and white characters in the book can be directly tied to many attitudes held today.

A pleasant consequence of following some of these instructions is the other things you discover. This made me use the “shuffle” function on Spotify, which I never had before. I basically just asked it through a voice command to “play something” and the first song it played was No Love by Summer Walker, featuring SZA (who I LOVE) and Cardi B. Once I got a gist of what the song was about and its general vibes, I immediately thought of Luster.

The book is about Edie, a Black twenty-something year old artist who is just trying to make it. Once she finds herself without her admin job, she starts to live with her lover who’s twice her age and in an open marriage. She realizes that part of the reason she’s been invited into their lives is to help their Black adopted daughter, Akila, become more adjusted. The dynamics of the four people— Edie, her lover, his wife, and their daughter— is just as odd and interesting as you could imagine as it constantly juggles power, sex, and race.

This is being described as Rebecca meets Mexican Gothic, and is about Beatriz trying to get right after the Mexican War of Independence. Her father, General Hernandez, is executed as a result of the war and Beatriz is desperately trying to reestablish her security when widower Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes to her. He’s handsome and monied, so she says yes. Let’s call this “when securing the bag goes wrong part 157” because when she gets to his estate, she starts having terrible dreams, the housekeeper is putting magical symbols on the kitchen door, and maybe worst of all is the Don’s sister is gaslighting her (the nerve!). She starts to suspect that the former lady of the house was murdered and it’s her ghost that haunts the halls, and the only person she can trust to help her unearth the truth is a priest that practices witchcraft.

Olivia grew up in an all-girls school as an outcast because of her muteness. The only person who could communicate with her was the matron who taught her to use sign language, and who is now gone. She can barely even seek solace in her mother’s journals as they eventually descend into madness as she reads them. Well, one day she seems to catch a break when she gets a letter from her uncle inviting her to his estate called Gallant. Naturally, she goes, but finds out that no one actually sent for her. On top of that, there are ghouls and her cousin Matthew is super shady. The Gallant house does hold answers to secrets about what happened to her parents, though, even if it’s not what she expected.

Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic also really belongs on this list, but I won’t list it separately so as to not be redundant. This is a remix of The Island of Doctor Moreau and takes place in Mexico in the 19th century. Carlota, the daughter of Dr. Moreau, dreams of a life outside of her father’s invention. She also wonders about Eduardo, while Montgomery, Dr. Moreau’s assistant who suffers from alcoholism, wonders about her. While all of this pining transpires, Dr. Moreau’s half-human, half-animal creations lurk in the shadows, struggling to attain independence even though they were meant to obey. Yeah, there’s a lot going on here. In the best way.

This is described as The Haunting of Hill House + Get Out. It’s about Marigold, who moves from California to a Midwestern city with her new stepfather and his obnoxious daughter. Their picturesque house on Maple Street in Cedarville seems perfect, but things keep disappearing, one of her stepsister’s new friends wants her gone, and the ghosts Mari keeps trying to outrun (including that of her past addiction) may not be imaginary.

Srinivasan, a professor at Oxford, examines the idea of sex in the west, specifically the U.S. and the U.K. Through essays that make the argument that a seemingly private thing is actually a public concern, she asks how we should talk and think about sex. She argues that things like gender, class, race, sexuality, and immigration status should be considered when issues concerning consent are raised. Porn and its role in the objectification of women is also tackled, with Srinivasan questioning whether legislation would help in the internet age. She references second-wave feminism of the ’60s and ’70s, and touches on how laws that were seemingly made to protect vulnerable populations actually ended up harming them and strengthening oppressive institutions, especially in the case of sex work.

Book Club Bonus: What do you think of Srinivasan’s argument on legislation and vulnerable populations? Do you think the further marginalization of the vulnerable with these laws was intentional or merely unfortunate?

Hamad covers much ground— from Zimbabwe to the U.S.— in her analysis of the culture and history of white feminism. She starts in the time of slavery in the Americas and how white women fought to keep Black people, which of course included Black women, enslaved to them. She argues how, since then, many of them have endorsed all of the evil trappings that come with colonialism, leaning onto the pedestal created for them by the patriarchy when convenient. Some of them have protected the privileges of “white womanhood” through the years by participating with white men in things like removing Indigenous children from their families and lynchings.

As evidence of this, she offers the example of how some white women will weaponize their tears in order to avoid accountability in the workplace, forcing the woman of color bringing them to task to accept blame lest she be labelled “aggressive.” Her cultural analysis includes everything from the Hunger Games to the lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest in the 19th century.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what you think of the idea of exclusionary feminism having started in the time of slavery (at least for the U.S.). Do you think the type of women who believed in slavery if it benefitted them would be the same to believe in feminism?

Let’s take it all the way back, shall we? In this feminist classic, Davis also starts in the time of slavery. Enslaved Black women worked alongside the men in the fields as they, too, tried to fight against slavery whenever possible. These women embodied “hard work, perseverance and self-reliance, a legacy of tenacity, resistance and insistence on sexual equality – in short, a legacy spelling out standards for a new womanhood.” In other words, these women lived by feminist principles, but there has been a history of Black women and other women of color being separated from the movement.

Davis starts to explain when the divide took place as she details how Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two southern white sisters, fought for abolition and feminism simultaneously. Then, during the Suffrage movement, the interests of feminism changed, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott leading their followers to focus on issues that largely did not apply to non white women or working class women. Davis continues through history to the present (this book was published in the early ’80s), discussing contemporary issues (like reproductive rights, etc.).

Book Club Bonus: Discuss the contemporary issues presented by Davis. Are they still relevant today, or have they largely been solved?

This took home the audiobook of the year award and was narrated by Ray Porter. It follows Ryland Grace, who just woke up from a looong sleep on a ship in space millions of miles from home. He has a crappy memory and two corpses to contend with. Annd he’s also humanity’s last hope to defeat a threat of epic proportions, but he doesn’t remember that, either. Suffice to say, Ryland is pressed.

Book Club Bonus: Speculative fiction writers have long been credited with predicting the future, but how close to a future reality does this book come, do you think? Has the pandemic changed just how much of speculative fiction you think is possible. Discuss!

Obama won the narration by the author award for this presidential memoir. It makes sense, since our former president has a voice like buttah! Anywho, here Obama takes it all the way back to some of his earliest political goals on through his historic eight year term. He includes everything from developing the Affordable Care Act, contending with Vladimir Putin, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and more.

Book Club Bonus: A lot of things get blamed on the president of the moment, even if said president had no hand or control over the issue. Obama talks about some of his limits as president here. Discuss what surprised you.

This won the Audie award for fiction and was narrated by Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, James Langton, André De Shields, Dennis Boutsikaris, Steve West, Gabra Zackman, Robin Miles, and a full cast. Phew! “Full cast,” indeed! This is about Opal, a young, Black woman from Detroit as she figures out what she wants to do with her life in the early seventies. She’s not the type to conform to social standards and wants to be a star. So when she meets the British songwriter Neville Charles, she decides to pursue her musical dream with him. Then, when another band flies the confederate flag at a concert, tragedy strikes. Years later, journalist Sunny is covering Opal and Nev’s musical history and some shocking things come to light. This is told through oral tradition, which is especially suited to an audiobook.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what the club thought of the revelation. Does it change things? If so, how?

This won for thriller/suspense and was narrated by Brittany Pressley, Jennifer Jill Araya, Gary Tiedemann, and Jesse Vilinsky. It takes place in a peaceful town where Shelby Tebow goes missing. Then, so do Meredith Dickey and Delilah, her young daughter. The case goes cold, but then eleven years later, Delilah shows up! A whole lot of wtf-isms ensue.

Book Club Bonus: A good mystery will surprise you with the reveal, but still lay the groundwork for it to be feasible in the build up to it. Discuss how you felt this book built up to its final conclusion.