Hello, bookish friends!
I wanted to take a moment to review Book of the Month Club, which I have been a member of now for 14 months (geez, I feel like I just started yesterday!).
Choice
Every month, I choose from a selection of five very diverse books. These books are all chosen by BOTM’s judges, who are all wonderfully bookish people. including authors, magazine editors, and other such book lovers. With every selection comes the judge’s reason for choosing the book, which is always something I read each month, for all five of the books. Even when I know immediately which book I’ll choose, I still read the judges’ reasons for all five, because, you know, books!
You have the option of skipping a month if you don’t see a book you’d like to have. That hasn’t happened for me, though, because there’s always such a variety of choices.
For instance, this month, the choices are:
- Final Girls by Riley Sager (psychological thriller)
- The Child by Fiona Barton (mystery/thriller)
- Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong (fiction)
- The Windfall by Diksha Basu (fiction)
- American Fire by Monica Hesse (nonfiction)
Basically, there’s always something for whatever taste you have that month. There’s almost always a buzzed-about book as one of the choices, such as The Leavers by Lisa Ko, Swing Time by Zadie Smith, and others you can see in the picture above. Of course, I don’t always pick the popular choice!
Value
Book of the Month books are made specifically for the club, and are quality hard-cover books. Considering the last hard-cover, brand-new book I bought was $26, I’d say the value is pretty dang good. If you pay for 12 months up front, each book is $11.99.
Besides just getting a new book every month, they sometimes send fun trinkets (a curly straw, a wine glass coozie, a little coloring book), and you don’t pay anything beyond the $11.99 for shipping. Every month, they also have other titles available from past months (and a couple others) that you can get for $9.99, which is a pretty great deal, especially if you like to give gifts to the readers in your life without spending a ton on new books.
Fun
Mostly, I just love getting book mail every month. Sure, I choose the book that I want so I know it’s coming in the mail, but there’s just something special and fun about opening a box left on my doorstep that I know has a book or two in it.
If you are a book nerd, or if you need to find a gift for a book nerd, Book of the Month club is definitely something I’d suggest.
My only problem? My bookshelves are getting too full! Wait….that’s not really a problem. I take that back 😉
