Book Club Favorite Books

I'm coming to you today with some book club favorite books.  I have loved being in a book club with my neighbors.  We rotate who picks the book, plan a monthly dinner out to eat on a date that works for everyone and text about the books + neighborhood nonsense all month long.  Our dinners are heavy on the chatting and light on the books, but we always have a good book chat in person.

Some of us buy the books, some reserve it on Hoopla and sometimes we swap physical books mid month.  There is no pressure and that's my favorite thing.  If you had a crazy month and never read the book, we are all still thrilled to get together for a dinner out.

Our next book is The Calamity Club.  I had no idea it was 600+ pages so I was shocked when this massive book arrived in an Amazon box.  I need to get busy and read.  I have heard such mixed reviews about this book.  Have you read it?  Tell me what you thought of it in the comments.  I'm excited to see what it's all about.

Our last book - my pick - was The Burning Side.  I LOVED Sarah Damoff's debut novel The Bright Years and couldn't wait to read her next novel.  And that might be part of the problem because I did not love The Burning Side.  I think I set the bar pretty high for her next book.  I read reviews that said it was even better than her first book and it just wasn't for me.  The story line is compelling - a couple is on the brink of divorce when they lose everything in a fire.  Will the fire change the trajectory of their lives or will everything continue down the road to divorce??  The leading lady April was hard to connect with.  Her husband Leo wasn't a great communicator.  Actually neither of them were.  The side characters seemed more interesting than the main characters to me and I did not love the ending.  So if you are interested in Sarah Damoff, I'd highly recommend The Bright Years and maybe wait for her third novel to come out next.

I love tracking my books on Good Reads.  It's nice to have all the books I read for the year in one spot.  I'll do a little recap of my favorites.  I adore anything by Emily Henry.  Funny Story was a good one.  Local Woman Missing was scary, WILD and I still think about it today.

Remarkably Bright Creatures will be one of my favorite books of the year.  I know.  A book about an octopus.  Trust me.  It's more than that and you'll love it.  Follow up the book with watching the movie and you'll love them both equally.  You might just surprise yourself by crying over an octopus.  I did.

Theo of Golden.  Wow.  I'm going to say this one goes in my favorite books of all time category.  I adored Theo, adored his view on life and loved to see how much he impacted the community around him.  I think of Theo often.  I'm still in shock that this is the debut novel for Allen Levi.  His story of challenging himself to write a novel and then writing one like Theo of Golden on his first try is nothing short of amazing.  I'd recommend Theo of Golden to any adult.  You'll be better for reading it.

Again, I adored The Bright Years.  You should read it!

And then you get a glimpse at my mom read alouds - Mercy Watson & Hardy Boys.  My boys would recommend them to your kids.  Along with Elephant and Piggy, Dogman and Who Would Win books.

What have been your favorite books this year?  Have we read any of the same books?  Let me know in the comments!