I always wanted to be in book clubs but when my kids were younger, it just didn't seem like I had the time. I was working a full-time, retail management job and if we weren't busy, I was too tired. I did attend one book club meeting at a friend (another Cub Scout mom) that I really enjoyed it. It was a Kate Morton book (I believe it was the Distant Hours). At that time, their club was full and they rotated from house to house of the club members and some of them just lived too far away for me.
At the end of last year I saw someone talking about a local book club on Facebook so I joined it. I wasn't active in the group but followed what books they were reading. In March, I started reading the monthly selected books. I even went back and bought one of the previous months books (still need to read). Last month, I started posting on the group but I did miss their Zoom Book club meeting. I am really hoping to make it to review the April book. I would love for it to be in person but I understand that with Covid still around they are being safe. Maybe with the weather warming up they may change to an outdoor meeting. I guess we will see. :)
In March, I read Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Book Description (from GoodReads):
Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.
The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.
Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.
And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.
By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.
Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
In April, I read The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins,
Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates—a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.
But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie—not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for.
Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past—or his—catches up to her?
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
For May, Midnight Library by Matt Haig was selected. The only version I was able to get my hands on from the library was the large print so I had my kiddos pick it up for me yesterday.
Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?
A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
I will post my review once I have read this one!
Are you in any book clubs? Tell me about your experiences with them. Do you enjoy the books that are read? How do they select the books?
~Shannon