Book Club Reading Roundup: November 2019 Edition

As the year is wrapping up, the last book clubs of the year are upon us. I have just one more meeting and then I won’t see my book-loving friends again until 2020 — I can’t believe it! What a year of good books it’s been. 

If this is your first time checking out the Book Club Wrap-Up, I suggest hopping over to my first post, in which I describe each of my different book clubs. It’s a helpful reference. 🙂 

And now onto what we read and discussed most recently:

Traditional Book Club

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

Hogan’s novel is contemporary fiction with a touch of magical fiction. It’s pretty character driven and weaves together a lot of random story lines, which come from the various lost things. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it was chosen because of its solid Goodreads rating (3.82 stars) and its short length (less than 300 pages) since we were meeting just three weeks from the time before. 

I remember liking it when I read and reviewed it last year, and in fact, I gave it 4 stars myself. I didn’t re-read it this time around, but I was kind of surprised to hear the very differing opinions our members had. Only two of us (out of seven) actually admitted to liking it; one person really hated it (the girl who chose it, incidentally); and the rest of the group was just so-so about it. 

As a result, there did end up being a good amount to talk about — differences of opinion are bound to cause that to happen — so I think we can chalk it up to a good selection. After all, book clubs are here for us to talk about books! 

Meetup Book Club

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

We typically try to pick a thriller or something spooky to read for our November selection. Since we meet the first Tuesday of the month, it’s usually just after Halloween, meaning we get to read the book when everyone’s in the mood to be scared. This time, the vote went the way of The Broken Girls. 

St. James’ novel flips back and forth between a boarding school in the 1950s and modern day, in which the Vermont school is being renovated to finally reopened after decades of closure. I’m not one for scary books, generally, and there were parts of this one that definitely creeped me out. Overall, the members of our book club seemed to enjoy it, and it proved to be a good pick for discussion. 

Diversity Book Club

Due to the holidays, my office’s book club isn’t meeting again until the New Year, so nothing to report until then! 

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Also, for those of you that don’t know, I’m about to have a baby (and day now hopefully!). As such, I won’t be attending a couple of upcoming book clubs and will be taking a temporary break from these wrap-ups. I fully expect to be back in February! 

In the meantime, keep reading! I would love to hear what some of your book clubs’ favorites were this year — let me know in the comments below.