What My Book Club Read in 2024
5 straight years of book club. There are few things I’ve done every single month consistently for 5 years straight. 😅 But what a journey. I began this book club with 4 other girlfriends in January 2020, just before the world shut down. Now, there are 3 of us, but we’re in it for the long haul - what beautiful memories, conversations, and journeys we’ve had together through the stories we’ve experienced in the last 5 years!
If you want to know how we structure our book club and how we keep it going for so many years, join my email list and get this book club guide for free, or listen to this podcast episode.
Here are the books we read together in 2024, along with my thoughts on each:
How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This was a fun, light-hearted winter read. An inspiring story about a woman in her 80s who decides to go after a dream of seeing penguins in Antarctica. She discovers and heals from some deep truths in her life in the process.
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
LOVED IT. I actually think about this book often. SO well written and a story that really draws you in. It was heart-filled, maddening at times, and with such a clever ending.
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese ⭐️⭐️
Ick. NO. This book was disturbing. I truly enjoyed The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, but this one was a total miss for me. Too much medical talk, did not enjoy the relationships in the book.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This book was like a kids book for grown-ups, with a fun mystery set on an island off the coast of Maine. I didn’t want it to end! The ending was actually great, though. Very imaginative and different from what we usually read in book club. Only thing I didn’t like were the random, unnecessary curse words that did not add to the story at all. If not for those, I would probably recommend it to my teenager.
The Women by Kristin Hannah ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Another brilliant offering by Kristin Hannah just has a way of pulling out every emotion you have in you. I have to say I didn’t love this as much as some other Kristin Hannah books (like The Nightingale and The Four Winds), but it was still excellent. I loved the way she celebrated the heroic female nurses of the Vietnam War - and shows how their lives were forever changed because of it.
“The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn’t quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. We were there.”
The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is our third novel we’ve read by William Kent Krueger, and he hasn’t let us down yet. This is another great mystery by him in an immersive setting. I haven’t been to Minnesota yet, but I feel like I have such a strong sense of it from his novels that are set there (This Tender Land and Ordinary Grace are the two others we’ve read, and I loved them even more than this one). The river and landscape are like actual characters in the book, and his writing is beautiful, as always.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It was okay. I liked learning about the Mi’kmaq people of Nova Scotia, and the elements of racism were disturbing and important to know. The story just seemed like it took forever to unravel and it was kind of predictable. Not one of my favorites, but I’m glad I read it.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I feel like people either loved or hated this book, and I really enjoyed it - the slowly unraveling pace, the setting, and the story. It made me think about the decisions and paths we choose in life and how those decisions affect generations. And now I really want to visit a Michigan cherry farm in spring.
Here’s a sweet moment from this past year when my husband left us some homemade chocolate chip sea salt cookies with a note. It’s the little things.
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Loved it. I didn’t expect to love this as much as I did, but I was completely drawn into the modern-day world of the Padavano sisters, who are apparently a nod to the sisters in Little Women. The love of sisters is a complex one, and as I hope for my own daughters, a bond that will ultimately never be unbroken. This book is a layered saga told in the voice of each of the sisters about their choices in life and the wounds that can tear a family apart - or not if you seek reconciliation. The cover of the book means even more once you finish it.
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Leif Enger wrote one of my all-time favorite fiction books, Peace Like a River, so I was really excited when he released this! It’s dystopian though, which I don’t tend to enjoy reading. I was willing to go for it, because it’s Leif Enger, and I was SO pleasantly surprised how much I loved it. The symbolism and treatise on our modern times and the potential consequences of our future were so thought-provoking. The main character was endearing, and I felt like I was immersed in the chilling, mysterious Lake Superior setting. The title is a perfect one - that we can choose to see the good gifts and hope in our lives amidst truly harrowing times and circumstances. Leif Enger’s writing pierces the soul and is unforgettable. This one will stay with me.
“Probably doomed and perplexingly merry, was a concise report of our handmade lives.”
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Yes, two Amor Towles books in one year! Ok, listen. So many people told me this is one of their favorite books. And I believe them. But it took me 300 PAGES INTO THIS BOOK to understand why. You have to be willing to make it through the Russian words and history that in my opinion, were very hard to follow. and the pages and pages and PAGES detailing the daily workings of the Count’s life on house arrest at the Hotel Metropol. That being said, I saw the immense beauty threaded throughout the story and lots of gems. I actually dog-eared a massive number of pages in this novel, and many of the things I underlined were one-liners that really hit me deeply. In the end, I absolutely loved how the story turned out, and I’m glad I persevered until the very end to find out! The most beautiful and meaningful things our lives really are the simple ones.
“In the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.”
Anxious People by Fredrik Bachman ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Made me laugh, pulled at the heartstrings, and was a fun mystery set in Stockholm. I’ve never read anything like this, and it made me want to read more Fredrik Bachman for sure!
