April Book Club: Must-read YA novels for the no-so-young adult

Get ready – your April book club reading recommendations are here!

In a teaser post two weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d be starting to give you recommendations for book club books, based on a different theme each month. This theme is my absolute favorite. Basically I think of myself as a teen in an adult body. Just ask anyone who attended my 13-year-old-girl themed 30th birthday party.

I think it’s because unlike a good majority of people, I loved high school (and I wasn’t popular, lol). Being a teenager growing up in small-town Wisconsin was a much less stressful time in my life. Friday night football games, crushing on all the cute boys, eating ice cream everyday at lunch and not gaining weight, driving around with friends listening to music and best of all, never having to do my own laundry.

If you’re anything like me and love an easy read that transports you back to easier times, or really liked reading the hunger games, I highly recommend reading some of these YA novels for your April book club:

  • Turtles All the Way Down Such a good book. Even though the plethora of Star Wars references were lost on me, the awkward teenage romance hits close to home.
  • Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda The book that inspired the new movie Love, Simon is a must-read. I cried, in a good way. A classic coming of age story with a twist that hasn’t been given the necessary spotlight before.
  • The Spectacular Now This book gave the teen girl inside of me hope that the most popular boy in school would one day ask me out.
  • Looking for Alaska By far John Green’s best book. That’s all I can say because I’m nervous I’ll spoil the ending for you. Read it. Trust me.

AV Monthly Book Club: Books for people who don’t like to read

S and I met some of our closest friends by starting a book club six years ago. I know, this sounds like something too refined or high brow for us. But guess what — we’ll take almost any excuse to get together with girlfriends, drink wine and eat cupcakes.

If you know me, reading anything longer than a gossip magazine has always been a chore. So we started our club with a very specific theme – books that have been turned into movies. It then spread into memoirs by funny women. Since then, our book club has become more of a “let’s get together and watch The Bachelor,” or “let’s meet for breakfast before work” club, and we’ve abandoned books all together.

But since I’m aging more toward 40 and further away from 20 – it’s about time I exercise my mind and reintroduce reading to my after-work hobbies. Starting this April I’ll be recommending monthly reads, based on a theme, for anyone else who wants to start or restart a book club. Don’t worry, I plan to focus on easy, entertaining reads under 350 pages.

Stay tuned for April’s suggestions coming in the next few weeks. I’ll give you a hint – one of the books may be based on a movie I recently saw and fell in love with…

-RC