10 Books I Read for My Old Book Club

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The prompt this week was “2024 Releases I Was Excited to Read but Still Haven’t Gotten To (will you be prioritizing these this year?)” but new releases are not something I pay attention to or are how I pick what books I want to read. I don’t want to do another TBR list, so I’m breaking up the *spoiler alert* future prompt for books I’ve never reviewed into two parts.

I’ve talked about being in a book club before. This was 2019 to March 2020 when COVID-19 put a stop to it, and I still feel quite sad about losing it from my life. The book club I was in chose books that were mentioned on The High Low podcast, this was not a podcast I listened to (I tried once and I didn’t like it, the hosts – Dolly Alderton and Pandora Sykes – are too posh London ‘media types’ for my taste) but it seemed as good a way as any to pick books. This experience definitely helped put me on the path to reading more contemporary literature, which was great!

1. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: This was the book for the first meeting. I’d seen this on bookshop displays but I’d always dismissed it, I think because of the cover, something about the cover just turns me off. It had also gotten a lot of hype which always makes me suspicious! I was so wrong to dismiss it because I loved this book! It blew my mind, I read it just a couple of days. I found her to be an unusual character, I related hard to lonely existence and I was deeply invested in her story. This was a 5 star read for me.

2. The Party by Elizabeth Day ⭐⭐: This one was disappointing, and I think everyone in the group was disappointed by it and I remember it being a bit of a struggle to get a decent discussion out of it because it was so run of the mill. I looked up Elizabeth Day afterwards and learned she’s a journalist who runs the same circles as the podcast hosts (and now has her own podcast).

3. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones ⭐⭐: I have very little memory of what I thought about this one, I gave it two stars on Goodreads but didn’t write any review or notes, so all I know is I didn’t love it. I think I struggled to feel connected to the characters, which probably says more about my personal life experience (English, white, grew up in the countryside) being so far away from this story of American racial injustice. This one could also have been a case of not being in the right frame of mind to read it at the time.

4. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie ⭐⭐⭐⭐: I gave this 4 stars but I also don’t remember it terribly well. It is a very dramatic family saga that explores a lot of themes (immigrant experiences, racism, misogyny, loyalty, grief, Islamophobia, indoctrination) and is a retelling of the Greek myth Antigone, but I had no knowledge of that at the time. It tackles a lot and it is largely successful from what I remember.

5. My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay ⭐⭐⭐: This is the memoir of successful poet Lemn Sissay and recounts his experience of being adopted (as a black child) by a white family in 1960s Britain. I remember the experience of reading this, it is deeply moving and frustrating. He suffered many injustices at the hands of the (Local) Authority during the time he was “in care” and the whole story is heartbreaking. I only gave this 3 stars and I can’t remember what I didn’t like about it!

6. All That Man Is by David Szalay ⭐⭐: This is such an interesting one! This book is a collection of short stories, each from the POV of a different man at a different stage of his life across Europe – and they’re all “losers” in one way or another. They are all horrible people and it’s full of disgusting objectification, and misogyny. However, I was so excited to get to book club and see what the men in the group would think of it (especially one guy who could speak quite eloquently and often offered a different perspective!). Predictably, all the women loathed it but the men enjoyed it, and said they could relate to it and could recognise these characters in other men they knew. I came away from that meeting with a new appreciation for this book, it was not for me but it is not without merit!

I have actually been thinking about it quite a bit while reading Alias Grace and struggling with the male POV.

7. The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer ⭐⭐: I’ve just reread the blurb for this book and I really do not remember it! I gave it two stars, so that probably says it all.

8. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: I do remember this one and it was very powerful story of a sex worker dying in a dumpster, reflecting back on her life as she escaped an abusive childhood only to end up tricked into prostitution in Istanbul, the friends that she found along the way. I remember the first half being a lot stronger than the second half (it gets weirdly slap-stick towards the end), but I was very moved by this book and I would recommend it. I gave it five stars at the time!

9. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo ⭐⭐⭐⭐: I gave this 4 stars but I really don’t remember anything about it! It says there are twelve very different characters but I couldn’t recall one without having to go and read a summary! I guess I enjoyed reading this but it just didn’t leave any lasting impression.

10. The Falconer by Dana Czapnik ⭐: I remember being bored to death by this one! If I wasn’t reading it for the book club I would have DNF’d this. I disliked it so much I actually did write a Goodreads review! It had too many long and very dull passages about basketball games, and it was also a very New York book (and really wanted you to know that). The characters were annoying too, especially being 17 year olds. Do not recommend!

11. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney ⭐⭐⭐: I’ve talked about this one before. I think I’m too old now to vibe with Sally Rooney’s sad, thin, pretty characters. This was the first Rooney I read, and the last book club book (I had a library copy I couldn’t return for a year because of the pandemic!). I remember that this was an OK but mostly I found all the characters very irritating!