Last month I couldn’t believe it was time to pick another book already. This month I can’t believe it’s taken this long! Most of us seem to have plowed through October’s book (Big Little Lies) and were left hanging for half a month or so as we anxiously awaited the next book (and our Big Little Lies discussion).
While you have to wait another week for our discussion (which I’ll post here next Friday and slowly trickle the questions through the Facebook group starting Friday as well), I do have the vote together for November’s pick!
This month I did things a little differently and chose all books that were suggested by the group. I tried to make sure they were easily available through the library and in paperback since our last book was neither (which meant moving Reunion by Hannah Pittard to my list of books to consider for the future).
Hopefully this month’s pick goes over as well as the last two have. I’m at least happy with how nicely their covers work with each other…
Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas (400 pages)
This one is Koren Zailckas’s (she wrote the memoir Smashed about her issues with alcohol) debut novel and it looks really dark and really interesting.
Josephine’s life looks picture perfect, but her controlling influence hasn’t been easy on her family. When a violent incident leads to a visit from child protective services, the truth about the Hursts might finally be revealed. Compared to classic suspense novels by Shirley Jackson and Daphne DuMaurier, Mother, Mother is the story of a mother’s love gone too far.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (544 pages)
A National Book Award finalist, this is the story of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths eventually cross as they try to survive World War II. When the Nazis occupy Paris Marie-Laure and her father flee to her reclusive great-uncle’s house by the sea, bringing with them the Museum of Natural History’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing radios, which gets him into an academy for Hitler Youth and eventually lands him a special assignment to track the resistance. Becoming more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war until his story converges with Marie-Laure’s.
Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult (416 pages, not available in paperback)
Jenna’s mother, Alice, mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident more than ten years ago. Refusing to believe she was abandoned, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies: Serenity Jones, a psychic who rose to fame finding missing persons, only to later doubt her gifts, and Virgil Stanhope, the jaded private detective who’d originally investigated Alice’s case along with the strange, possibly linked death of one of her colleagues. As the three work together to uncover what happened to Alice, they realize that in asking hard questions, they’ll have to face even harder answers.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (315 pages)
Cheryl Strayed was 22 when her mother died, her family scattered, and her marriage ended. Four years later, she decided to hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail without any experience or training and completely alone. Both suspenseful and funny, this is the true story of the journey that healed her.
If you haven’t joined our book club yet, now is the perfect time to jump in! Most of the action goes down on our private Facebook group where we frequently gush and attempt to be casting directors. We’ve been having a whole lot of fun.
If you’re interested, you can request to join (and you can always leave the group if you hate it or just stalk us and never say a peep). You can also add any friends you think might enjoy it.
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Hi! I'm Jen, a freelance writer and girl mom who loves reading the newest children’s books as much as I love a good psychological thriller. I believe fiercely in the power of kindness, empathy, and really good quality chocolate. When I'm not knee-deep in glittery crafts and girl talk, you can probably find me sprawled out on my couch in the middle of a Netflix marathon with dark chocolate smeared on my face. The struggle is real. 
