Welcome to my book club!
I hope you join us for our next book 🙂 .
As a reminder, here are the “rules” of Shay’s Book Club:
Here are the details:
1: On the 22nd of each month, I will share a BONUS blog post that is only about the book we read together that month. So, if it falls on a weekend, look for it that day, if it falls on a Tuesday, expect a food post, a normal lifestyle post AND third post just for the book review discussion.
2: I picked the 22nd because I want this post to come out BEFORE our normal monthly BOOK REVIEW POSTS. I will still share my normal monthly book reviews (where I average 4 to 6 books a month) at the end of each month. I will reference said “book of the month”, but I will not be reviewing it on that post, I will be linking back to the BOOK CLUB POST. Why? Because I want all of the content about the one specific book club book in one spot instead of spread out over multiple spots.
3: Each month at the end of the Book Club blog post, I will share what the book will be for the following month. This will give everyone one month to read this one particular book.
4: Let’s be real, I’m going to try to pick new/popular/relevant books every month, but I’m also going to pick books that speak to me. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share them with me. I’m going to *try* and make the books different genres each month. I would love for us to read a variety of fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, chick lit, thrillers, etc this year. That’s the *goal*.
5: What are the rules of the book club? I know a lot of book clubs have rules and perhaps I’ll add some as we go, but basically, if you want to read along with us, we’d love to have you and on the 22nd we’ll dive a little deeper in the comment section here about that one particular book. Easy as that! That post is the one place where we’ll discuss the book so that all thoughts/opinions/questions/etc can be in one location.
6: In this blog post and in the comment section, WE WILL BE DISCUSSING SPOILERS. If you are interested in reading this book, you might not want to read through the Book Club blog posts. In my monthly BOOK REVIEW each month, I will give a quick recap and let you know if I recommend the book or not, so if you haven’t read it, you might want to wait until that official BOOK REVIEW because there will be no spoilers and based on that, you can decide whether or not to read the book.
The reviews will include spoilers as everyone commenting and myself have already read the book.
Here are the books we discussed in 2024 along with my own personal “star ratings”…
The Last Love Note by Emma Grey 4 STARS
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon 5 STARS
The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins 3 STARS
The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin 3 STARS
Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth 4 STARS
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl 2 STARS
Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand 3 STARS
Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams 3 STARS
By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult 4 STARS
Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker 4 STARS
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout 2 STARS
Here are the books we discussed in 2025 along with my own personal “star ratings”…
The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry 5 STARS
Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old by Brooke Shields 2 STARS
The Crash by Freida McFadden 3 STARS
One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter 5 STARS
All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett 3 STARS
Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein 2 STARS
My Friends by Fredrik Backman 5 STARS
The View From Lake Como by Adriana Trigiani 4 STARS
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall 5 STARS
Buckeye by Patrick Ryan 4 STARS
The Widow by John Grisham 4 STARS
And here are the books we’ve read so far this year along with my own personal “star ratings” as well…
The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb 3 STARS
The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff 4 STARS
The Boys in the Light by Nina Willner 5 STARS
This is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman 2 STARS
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth 5 STARS
If you want to check out all of my Book Club posts, they are all HERE!
