I’m lucky to be part of a real life book club with some wonderful ladies! After a break due to the holidays, COVID, and winter making it hard to meet outdoors, we’ve recently started back up.
This book club has been going for nearly 8 years! Members have come and gone. Not all of us make it every month. I myself missed out on many meetings while traveling but it’s so nice to have real life bookish friends to come back to.
Over those years we’ve read a lot of really great books and a few duds. We’ve played around with different genres or fun challenges for each month. Each member brings a book suggestion and we vote on what to read next. We’ve had an alternating system so each member gets a chance to suggest a chosen book.
Depending on what’s going on in life, some of us don’t always manage to read the book. We usually dedicated the first 30 minutes or so to catching up. Then the rest of the meeting we talk about the book.
The books that keep us talking the longest seem to be those that deal with moral or ethical dilemmas. Sometimes a unique thriller or mystery goes over well too!
Today I’m sharing 10 of the books that led to great discussion at book club. We’ve read a lot of huge titles that make it on all the book club lists like Gone Girl, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Wild. True to my reading life, I’m including a lot of backlist picks. Hopefully there are a few titles that went under the radar for you.
Read these for great discussion at book club:
The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
While her husband is away on a business trip, Cecilia Fitzpatrick discovers a letter meant to be opened after his death. The dark secret inside threatens to destroy everything they’ve built as well as change the lives of two women in their neighborhood Cecilia barely knows, Rachel and Tess.
Published in 2013, we chose this book the following winter. This book is impossible to put down. The way Moriarty weaves secrets, connections, and consequences through the lives of these characters gave us so much to talk about!
Liane Moriarty is one of two authors we’ve picked multiple works from. This was the first book I ever read from her and I immediately gobbled up her backlist titles. The Husband’s Secret was the hit before Big Little Lies made Liane Moriarty a household name. I often reread her books. What Alice Forgot, another book club pick, is one of my favorites to revisit!
The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain
This story unravels over 20+ years. In 1977 Genevieve Russell disappeared while nine months pregnant. Years later, her remains are discovered with no sign of her unborn child. Timothy Gleason is found guilty of her murder and faces the death penalty.
CeeCee Wilkes knows what happened that day and now faces a devastating choice. To tell the truth and save an innocent life, she must destroy the family she’s created and the daughter she chose to raise as her own.
Diane Chamberlain is the other author we’ve chosen to read for book club multiple times. Though published in 2006, we didn’t read this book until 2015. It’s a very compelling read that keeps you hooked throughout. The characters’ choices and moral dilemmas will give you plenty of things to discuss.
Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
During spring break of their senior year, Anna and her best friend Elise travel to Aruba with some close friends for an amazing beach vacation. When Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna becomes the prime suspect trapped in a foreign country. To save herself, Anna enters a web of slippery truths to find her friend’s killer.
Dangerous Girls was published in 2013. The real life echos of Natalee Holloway’s disappearance and Amanda Knox’s conviction made this book even more eerie. I actually read this book while traveling in Indonesia in 2016. I couldn’t put it down and I did not see it coming! If you enjoy twisty thrillers, this is a perfect book to pack into your beach bag.
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Nicolette Farrell hasn’t returned to her rural hometown in 10 years, ever since her best friend, Corinne, disappeared. Back then she found herself and her loved ones in the middle of an investigation. Called home to help her sick father, old wounds reopen when another girl connected to the old case goes missing within days of Nic being back.
All the Missing Girls was published in 2016 and we read it a year later. The most interesting part of this book is the way it’s formatted. Megan Miranda wrote it so it’s told backward – from day 15 to day 1 of the new girl disappearing. Between that, the past dynamics of a small town, and the mystery itself, there will be plenty to discuss at book club.
The One-in-a-Million-Boy by Monica Wood
When an 11-year-old boy offers to help 104-year-old Ona for a few hours every Saturday morning, she’s surprised to find herself telling him all about her long life including secrets she’s kept for decades. Ona decides the boy wasn’t special after all when he stops showing up one weekend. Soon after the boy’s father shows up desperate to finish his son’s good deed. As Ona gets to know the grieving parents, she realizes the world can still surprise her and there may still be time to find herself again.
The One-in-a-Million-Boy was published in 2016 and we read it for book club at the end of 2017. It was a very emotional read about life, loss, and second chances. It made for a great book club discussion because some people found it depressing and others found it inspiring.
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
This Is How It Always Is tells the story of 5-year-old Claude, the youngest of five brothers born to Rosie, a doctor and Penn, a writer. Claude loves peanut butter sandwiches, Penn’s fairy tales, and also wearing dresses. When he grows up, he wants to be a girl.
Rosie and Penn want their child to be whoever Claude wants to be, but they also want to keep Claude safe. When a move from Wisconsin to Seattle gives them an opportunity to keep Claude’s past a secret, they take it. It’s only later they realize how the secret will affect their children and complicate their family life.
Published in 2017, this book was a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee and a book club pick for Reese Witherspoon so it’s definitely not unknown. However all of us loved this story so much and had such a great discussion at book club after reading it that it deserves to be on the list! Just in case you missed it.
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
This thriller opens with two strangers meet in an airport bar and begin playing a game of truth. When the man confesses his marriage is in trouble and jokes that he’d like to murder his wife, the women at the bar shocks him by offering to help.
The Kind Worth Killing had me hooked from the beginning! Published in 2015, it’s been compared to The Girl On the Train. I thought it was even better with the twists and turns that the story unravels. The interactions, thoughts, and viewpoints of the characters will give readers a lot to talk about. I also loved the atmosphere and included this book on my favorite fall reads list.
When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal
Kit Bianci lost her sister, Josie, when she was killed on a train during a terrorist attack. At least that’s what she believed until she sees Josie fifteen years later on the news half a world away. With her life as an ER doctor in Santa Cruz turned upside down by the revelation, Kit takes off to Auckland to find her sister and deal with their past.
This is one pick that I missed the meeting for. I read it later on because other members enjoyed it so much. With a little bit of everything – mystery, family dynamics, adventure, romance – this book offers many discussion points. It was published in 2019 but became one of my favorite books read in 2020.
If We Were Villians by M.L. Rio
If We Were Villians is told by Oliver Marks, who has just been released from prison after serving ten years for murders. The detective who put him there is about to retire but he would like to know the truth about what happened a decade ago. Oliver shares his story as a play. The events ten years before, when he was one of seven college senior studying Shakespeare at a small private arts school, unfold in acts and scenes.
Published in 2017, we read this book last October and all agreed it was the perfect pick for fall. From the structure of the book and dialogue to the atmosphere created to the actual mystery, we had a great night talking about this pick.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Such a Fun Age follows Alix Chamberlain a successful white businesswoman and Emira Tucker, her 25-year-old black babysitter after a late night grocery store incident where Emira is accused of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. Though it was caught on camera by a bystander, Emira just wants to move past the event while Alix becomes obsessed with making things right.
This was our book pick for last month when we got back in the swing of meetings. Published at the very end of 2019, Such a Fun Age was a Goodreads Choice Winner and another of Reese’s book club picks. Although some members enjoyed the book more than others, all of us agreed once we picked it up, we couldn’t put it back down. It led to a great discussion at book club about privilege, race, and how people can see the same event and come to entirely different conclusions.
Are you part of a book club? What are your reading recommendations?
2 responses to “Books that Led to Great Discussion at Book Club”
These all look great!!! I’ll have to add them to my list! 💗
Yay! Let me know what you think when you get to them.