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The February 2020 Book of the Month choices are here!
Book of the Month is such a fun service. I spend a lot of time debating about which book to select—it’s hard to pick!
So let’s take a closer look at the February 2020 Book of the Month selections. If you haven’t already, you should become a member of Book of the Month! Click here to sign up and use the code SUN5 to get your first box for $9.99!
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
I’ve seen a lot of really positive early buzz for The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré. It sounds like the kind of book that will stick with you and I believe book clubs will have plenty to discuss. I picked this one for my BOTM! Here’s the synopsis:
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. This, her mother has told her, is the only way to get a “louding voice”—the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni’s father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir.
When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing.
But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it. And when she realizes that she must stand up not only for herself, but for other girls, for the ones who came before her and were lost, and for the next girls, who will inevitably follow; she finds the resolve to speak, however she can—in a whisper, in song, in broken English—until she is heard.
You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen is one of the most anticipated books of 2020, which is one reason I included it on my must-read 2020 book club picks list. Their book last year An Anonymous Girl was a hit with book clubs. I have an advanced reader’s copy (ARC) of You Are Not Alone and I will write book club questions for it so be sure to check back for those. The synopsis is super vague but when it comes to thrillers, the less you know about it, the better.
You probably know someone like Shay Miller.
She wants to find love, but it eludes her.
She wants to be fulfilled, but her job is a dead end.
She wants to belong, but her life is so isolated.
You probably don’t know anyone like the Moore sisters.
They have an unbreakable circle of friends.
They live the most glamorous life.
They always get what they desire.
Shay thinks she wants their life.
But what they really want is hers.
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
This book was, by far, the most buzzed about novel going into 2020. However, there has been a lot of controversy, which you can read about from the New York Times here. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to see this listed and BOTM did say that the team debated whether to pull American Dirt from the site. However, they decided it should be up to the reader if they want to read it or not rather than “make the decision for you.” Here’s the synopsis:
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.
Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. One day, a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy―two of them are her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of a drug cartel that has taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
Forced to flee to beyond Javier’s reach, Lydia and her eight-year-old son Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. As they join the countless people trying to reach the United States, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?
The Holdout by Graham Moore
So I was not familiar at all with The Holdout by Graham Moore but after reading the synopsis, I have to say it sounds intriguing! They say this one is targeted toward Serial fans. Here’s the synopsis:
It’s the most sensational case of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar real estate fortune, vanishes on her way home from school, and her teacher, Bobby Nock, is the prime suspect. The subsequent trial taps straight into America’s most pressing preoccupations: sex, law enforcement, and the lurid sins of the rich and famous. It’s an open-and-shut case for the prosecution, and a quick conviction seems all but guaranteed—until Maya Seale, a young woman on the jury, convinced of Nock’s innocence, persuades the rest of the jurors to return the verdict of not guilty, a controversial decision that will change all their lives forever.
Flash forward ten years. A true-crime docuseries reassembles the jury, with particular focus on Maya, now a defense attorney herself. When one of the jurors is found dead in Maya’s hotel room, all evidence points to her as the killer. Now, she must prove her own innocence—by getting to the bottom of a case that is far from closed.
As the present-day murder investigation weaves together with the story of what really happened during their deliberation, told by each of the jurors in turn, the secrets they have all been keeping threaten to come out—with drastic consequences for all involved.
Anna K by Jenny Lee
Hmm, Anna K by Jenny Lee is a bit of a wild card for me since this is a young adult book and I don’t tend to read that genre. But they’re calling it a darker version of Gossip Girl, which does sound good. Here’s the synopsis:
Meet Anna K. At seventeen, she is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and Newfoundland dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna’s brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather an sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven’s best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie.
As her friends struggle with the pitfalls of ordinary teenage life, Anna always seems to be able to sail gracefully above it all. That is…until the night she meets Alexia “Count” Vronsky at Grand Central. A notorious playboy who has bounced around boarding schools and who lives for his own pleasure, Alexia is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn’t, either. As Alexia and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to question if she has ever known herself at all.
Also, remember if you’re not a member, click here to sign up and use the code HEART to get your first box for $9.99! Let me know which book you pick!
