The 2023 MomAdvice Book Club Selections Are Announced

This engrossing memoir on motherhood was selected for its moving prose and the author's challenges she faced in navigating systems not built for her family.

This Boy We Made is a medical mystery memoir with thriller pacing that Harris expertly unwinds in an unforgettable narrative that I could not put down.

As Harris has struggled with a lifetime of anxiety, she faces one of the most anxious scenarios a mother could face: a child with life-threatening health problems that no one can seem to diagnose or solve.

Interspersed throughout our story, she shares the places in her own life where her anxiety and the world of her son, Tophs, collide. This story effectively shares this through the lens of being a Black mother with a child with disabilities.

The author's faith plays a part in her story. As a pastor's wife, the story would not feel complete without this element in her memoir.

As we have explored other faith stories throughout our years, I wanted us to appreciate these elements of identity essential to Taylor's story.

As so many of us discussed the challenges of navigating the medical system (as women) in The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness, this was another necessary discussion. Taylor faces additional hurdles being part of the Black community and shares how these insecurities are deeply rooted in a lifetime of microaggressions.

The book ends with a shocking conclusion that might not always give us all the answers to her son's world, but it does give us answers to her own.

The ending, specifically, is something we discuss in our interview series. Harris shares with beautiful honesty about where they are now in her son's journey and the challenges she continues to face, particularly when your child doesn't fit in the boxes provided by our educational systems.

It's a moving discussion that leads to many tears (for both of us) as Taylor shares why she continues to have faith even in the darkest moments of this journey.

This historical fiction story is a magically joyful Jewish story that takes us out of our typical WWII book club reading with a dual timeline set in the 1910s and 1990s.

Loigman weaves in the history of Jewish matchmaking, but it couldn't be further from the Fiddler on the Roof interpretation. She chose this period because of its rich matchmaking history, with over 5,000 matchmakers operating in New York at that time.

Sara holds a unique talent for matchmaking, but in 1910, this was a male-dominated occupation. So she hides her abilities even when she sees the sparks fly between matches and does what she can to matchmake in secret.

The reader is gifted a dual timeline experience with her granddaughter, Abby, discovering Sara's journal entries.

Abby is a successful divorce attorney who shares a few of Sara's talents but divides assets and ends marriages as part of her job. As Abby learns more about her family's history, she must fulfill a perplexing promise that Sara once made that could, ultimately, end her career.

A hidden treasure as a point of storytelling in historical fiction is a well-weathered trope that Loigman leaned into hesitantly. She effectively freshens it up with vibrant storytelling in both timelines and lots of clever nostalgia for the 1990s.

The author discusses this book with us and shares her extensive matchmaking research. We also learn how the quarantine sparked her creativity in unlikely ways. Loigman's telling of this fruitful season for her career is just as magical as the book is. It just might inspire a fruitful season of your own.

This cozy feminist-forward selection will resonate with new and seasoned historical fiction readers.

I'm confident this will be one of your favorite books of the year, and since I've read all of Loigman's books, I can attest that this is her best book yet.

Continuing on the themes of huggable and heartwarming, Joella's book could not be more perfect for a winter reading selection. This book will be a favorite this year for readers who embrace character-driven stories set in small towns.

A Quiet Life has three interconnected stories with characters all facing loss but discovering themselves and each other in their winter seasons of life.

Ethan Joella's symbolism in everyday objects and the world around us are moving. His storytelling chops showcase his ability to smartly craft great backstories for every character that embrace all of the reader's senses.

I count Ethan Joella among my friends, and his work is no stranger to the podcast (listen to the episode on his debut- lessons on writing your first book). As he did in his first book, his strong sense of place and character development make every person in this small town feel like someone you might stumble upon in real life.

The "found family" trope is one that our book club always seems to appreciate. Last year's The People We Keep, and The Reading List brought a lot of love through their intergenerational friendships. Books that showcase how people can fill in the gaps in our family lives are always a joy to share together.

This book still embraces Joella's signature quiet prose, but you will discover his experience writing it was much more challenging.

In our conversation, we discussed both of his books and what he hoped to achieve with this story. How does a writer embrace all the senses in just one sentence? You'll find out in this insightful interview.

This year I screened many books on unlikely families, but none was as unlikely or captivating as a woman discovering 35 siblings she had not known.

No, this is not fiction.

Instead, Chrysta's astonishing life story is documented in this riveting memoir of discovery as the father she thought she knew was far different than she could have imagined.

Chrysta's mother was a trailblazer, and her entire life as a single gay woman in the 1980s was ahead of its time. I don't want to rob you of the discoveries you will make about her, but it is sufficient to say that it is wilder than your imagination could fathom.

In this decade, her mother has few options for growing a family, and a chance encounter with a handsome man at a hair salon leads to sperm donations that bring Chrysta and her sister into the world.

Despite their agreement to keep this family planning option limited to just their family, Jeffrey becomes a local sperm bank's most coveted donor. Jeffrey's motivations and the reasons his profile is so often selected become known to the reader as Chrysta unfolds the story.

As Chrysta must raise herself and her sister due to her mother's chaotic lifestyle riddled with addictions of many kinds, she also must grapple with her parent's secrets.

We discuss in our interview series how the memoir The Glass Castle gave Chrysta permission to tell her story and how necessary it was when the media and headline news became so invested in telling their own version of this tale.

As women's reproductive rights remain continuously challenged, it begs us to ask why sperm donation is a largely unregulated industry and the double standards regarding reproduction and family planning.

It's a back-to-back memoir line-up, but this is from a seasoned voice in romance and memoir spaces. Wade Rouse is a bestselling author, perhaps best known for his beach reads written under the pen name Viola Shipman. However, you may not know that he is also a gifted memoir writer with four memoirs under his belt.

I selected this for the summer season because it is the kind of book you can read in a single day and set around the game of baseball. What a perfect summer selection!

Wade's story begins as a queer kid who grew up in a conservative Ozarks community. He and his father could not be more different, and his father is both brutally unaccepting and disapproving of Wade. It isn't just his sexual identity that baffles his father. His creative endeavors, writing career, and political leanings also confuse him.

Despite their differences, they do find common ground in one thing: baseball! Rouse shares the most moving portrait of father and son as they use this sport as glue to bind them when they can never see eye-to-eye.

Rouse also tackles the complex terrain of parenting an older parent when you have grown up in a challenging relationship. His grace for his dad and ability to find commonality in polarizing times make this an essential read for ANY reader. How do we find common ground when we feel so differently?

I can't recall a more moving memoir of father and son than this one. It left me in a puddle, and I marveled how Rouse could pull in a reader like me who couldn't care a bit about the game of baseball to be wholly enveloped in their shared love of the sport.

In our interview, Rouse discusses the challenges of being a queer writer that doesn't seem to fit in the David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs box. His writing, in fact, is best compared to Nora Ephron's instead!

The hour together is so beautifully heartfelt. Wade discusses how living his truth on paper has impacted other kids, particularly those who struggle to be accepted by their families due to their sexuality. We also discuss the challenges of writing the most difficult people in our lives with the grace to connect readers to your story still.

This life-affirming heartwarming story of a sixty-four-year-old postman finding the greatest love of his life is another huggable book addition to our reading year.

It's important to note that while I love a grumpy protagonist who keeps others away, Albert isn't one of those people. Instead, he has led a contented life of solitude, but as he is nearing retirement, he realizes that his life is quite lonely.

This retirement prompts him to consider how long his days will be with no one to share them with, and he begins to reminisce on the greatest love of his own life.

There is a reason that he has never shared his true love, and it is deeply rooted in his relationship with his father. But, slowly, he begins to share his story with his co-workers, who begin to help Albert live the life he should have lived with lots of beauty and charm for the reader.

But, most beautiful of all, we witness Albert's bewilderment as he realizes that so many in the world not only accept his story but will champion his opportunity to live in his truth.

Albert is an endearing big-hearted character, and this book feels cinematic. He is a character to root for, and the cast of supporting side characters is equally as charming through his season of discovery.

Magic Season & The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle are a perfect book flight as they both deal with complicated younger years and the parental challenges that discouraged their blooming.

I'm thrilled that Matt Cain, living in London, has agreed to share about the inspirational real-life interviews he conducted for Albert's life.

It is quite an honor to have him participate, as he has had a prolific career as a writer, broadcaster, and a leading commentator on LGBT+ issues. He was Channel 4's first Culture Editor, and Editor-In-Chief of Attitude magazine. He shares the story of many men he has interviewed over the years, like Albert, who kept their sexuality a secret until their later decades.

His interview will help give us context and history as we celebrate Pride Month together this year.

Last year's surprise book club hit was In the Wild Light, a YA selection that delivered both on a charming and uplifting coming-of-age story. It challenged me to bring another young adult book to this reading year that you will find just as endearing, meaningful, and uplifting.

This breathtakingly original story of a teenager who has always dreamed of a role in a local mermaid attraction is a perfect beach bag packable summer book club escape.

This story is compelling because Sylvester weaves her painful real-life history with hip dysplasia and the numerous surgeries she faced throughout her life into her young adult character. It imagines a world where her favorite Florida attraction has an opening for a mermaid, a role that she has dreamt about for many years.

Shaped from this younger viewpoint, we see how she views her Peruvian parent's protectiveness and their, at times, inability to include her in the conversations around these critical medical interventions because of her age.

As a first-generation Peruvian-American, we get a somewhat layered look at her immigrant parents' unique challenges with her medical care and why they come from such a protective stance. However, this story is far from sad; it is a story of a girl coming into her powers, as swimming is where she feels most at home in her body.

We will embrace disability awareness in three selections this year, and this YA perspective brings so much to the table. I welcome the body autonomy conversation in this book and why it matters.

We often think of body autonomy as solely a reproductive issue, and this novel expands the idea of what that encompasses.

This unique perspective is rounded out beautifully as Verónica finds her voice and her parents discover how wise and wonderful their daughter truly is. If you have a teen daughter, this is great to share and discuss.

Natalia will join the author interview series to discuss what it meant to write this character and how much this story overlapped with her own life.

In addition, we will discuss the complicated role of parenting a child with disabilities and how she views those decisions now as an adult.

This historical fiction selection takes inspiration from the real-life story of two girls, Mary Alice and Minnie Lee Relf. In 1973, at ages 12 and 14, they were surgically sterilized without consent in Montgomery, Alabama.

This book adds dimension by using narration through the eyes of a Black nurse in her first job, unknowingly participating in this sterilization project. What steps does she take once she finds out?

Civil, our narrator, works hard to pull them out of poverty but discovers that many measures she makes act as small bandages on gaping wounds. As her life becomes increasingly intertwined, it builds to a shocking conclusion that will change all of their lives forever.

I had planned to pick this book for our book club, and then you did it for me! Take My Hand was one of our most voted-upon selections for discussion for this year.

Given the recent events in women's reproductive rights, this book is a powerful examination of what role (if any) the government should play in our family-making and how we protect these systems when they feel so broken.

The moral and ethical questions this time in history poses make us contemplate why this is still happening today.

As provided in the author's note, we discover that between the years of 2006 and 2010, nearly 150 women in California state prisons had been sterilized without official approval. In 2020, a whistleblower alleged that immigrant women detained by ICE were forcibly sterilized without their consent.

Dolen will join the author interview series to share her extensive research on reproductive justice and what she learned, particularly about Black women who struggle to access affordable health care due to social and economic inequalities.

Will this be a tough one to discuss?

Absolutely. Is it necessary? A thousand percent.

This Reader's Choice selection is also a Reese's Book Club pick!

The New York Times shared this fun description of the book that I thought would be fun to include today. “True Biz takes place at River Valley School for the Deaf, a fictional community populated by opinionated, hormonal, rabble-rousing students — in other words, basic teenagers, albeit ones unburdened by "having to hear things all the time." (read the piece here)

In the author's note, she shares how deaf and hard-of-hearing students often feel broken and are kept apart from their peers. She stresses the importance and essential nature of Deaf schools as community hubs- the safe keepers of their language, history, and dreams for the future.

Readers have praised this as a beautiful way to understand what it means to be Deaf and how it relates to identity. As many loved CODA (the film), they found this to be another immersive way to learn about the Deaf community. I can't wait to read this book with you!

Author Sara Nović, who is Deaf herself, does not participate in many interviews, but we did reach out for a written interview request for our community.

I know that we will learn so much, either way, through this fascinating love letter to language itself.

I recommend purchasing this book's print edition as it contains sign language illustrations to help the reader immerse themselves more.

Spooky season is my favorite time of year, and I want to offer something different for our readers this year. This gothic historical fiction novel is set in the late 1800s and filled with mayhem, murder, and mystery. What could be spookier than that?

This pick is feminist-forward, but fits the context of this time period perfectly. For example, did you know the most well-known mediums of this time were women, and this was one of the few professions where women were more highly respected than men?

In our story, Vaudeline D'Allaire is a renowned spiritualist best known for her ability to conjure the spirits of murder victims to help solve cases, which lead her to a booming business thanks to many widows and investigators who happen to be on the hunt for answers.

Lenna Wickes becomes involved in her life when she heads to Paris to uncover answers about her sister's death. To get these explanations, she must push aside her disbelief and misgivings about the occult.

When Vaudeliene's services are requested to solve a high-profile case, Lenna accompanies her as her understudy. What they uncover, though, is an elaborate underground of powerful men in a secret séance society filled with secrets of another nature altogether.

As the women become entangled in this strange underbelly, told in shifting viewpoints, this mystery rapidly picks up the pace to bring us to a shocking conclusion. The ending, truly, can only be described as diabolical.

Sarah Penner had enormous success with her first book (The Lost Apothecary). This book was selected both for its premise and for the uniquely dynamic discussion the author can provide for Halloween month that will be unlike any other.

As part of Sarah's research, she attended a weekend retreat at the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp, established more than a century ago, to experience a real-life séance.

An admitted skeptic, she will share what this experience was like and the extensive research on the club that Penner loosely based her novel. The Ghost Club, founded in 1862, counted Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle among its members, and it still exists today!

Whether you are a believer or a skeptic on these things, all are welcome to participate in this unique discussion to learn the secret history behind the Victorian world of the spiritualist movement.

Set in present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake made from a family recipe with a long history and voice recording.

In the message, they learn of Eleanor's secret past where she escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. Can the siblings reclaim their relationship and fulfill Eleanor's request to share this black cake when the timing feels right?

Charmaine Wilkerson's debut was selected as a Reader's Choice selection for our group, but it was also a past selection for the Read With Jenna Book Club in 2022!

The novel is in development to become a Hulu series with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films and creator Marissa Jo Cerar ("The Handmaid's Tale") leading the team. This adaptation is just one more reason to read this debut.

Wilkerson is an American writer who has lived in Jamaica and is currently residing in Italy.

I'm thrilled to share that Charmaine will join us for the author series to discuss this first book and how the black cake recipe, a symbol of celebration, Caribbean tradition, and family, sparked such a beautiful family story.

"It is quite something to feel sure that you're alone in the world, and then to recall that you are not."

This quote perfectly describes why I wanted to end our year of reading with this stunning book that ended up being my favorite book of 2022.

This historical fiction novel has everything you could ever want in a well-told story for the month of December. In the perfect winter setting, a man seeks solitude but finds his chosen family instead.

In the early 1900s, Sven leaves Stockholm to seek adventures in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago, where he hopes to see the Northern Lights and be at one with the Artic wilderness.

Unfortunately, his plans dramatically change when he is involved in a devastating mining accident.

Not only does it take the lives of many, it leaves him disfigured and he decides to flee even further to a more remote location. In this quiet place, he plans a life of solitude in a hut with only his dog as a companion.

Lucky for Sven, he finds friendship with a Scottish mining executive and a reclusive Finnish trapper. These two men expand Sven's world beyond his own life as a recluse and it grows even further when his correspondence with his sister brings an unlikely visitor.

This fictional memoir is combined with a harrowing adventure story that challenged me in all the best ways. Sven is fully fleshed, and you will feel fully immersed in this imagined history for the real-life person where few facts are known.

Sven is introverted, bookish, and surprisingly funny. He's richly imagined and described in such beautiful ways that I found myself highlighting my entire book. The bond between Sven and his dog is perhaps one of this story's most magical elements.

This book is intended to reminds us that even in the most inhospitable conditions, we are not beyond the reach of love.

I am incredibly honored that Nathaniel Ian Miller is joining us to discuss his writing process for this uniquely imagined world. He not only holds an MFA in Creative Writing and MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana, he is also a former resident in the Arctic Circle Expeditionary Program.

Patrons will not only have full access to our interview series, they will also get to participate in three bonus selections this year. This is the first bonus selection for our month as an "Anti-Valentine's Day" discussion.

This darkly imaginative book is just the kind of novel that deserves a book club discussion. It will be both polarizing and a fascinating exploration of how we use media to escape our real lies.

Following a traumatic event, Bonnie Lincoln desires more than anything to escape the reality of her life. She finds that escape in the nostalgic glow of a 70s sitcom called Three's Company.

When she wins the lottery, Bonnie decides to spend her earnings replicating the exact set of the show down to the smallest detail to recreate the show as her lived experience, in isolation, living each day just as the characters.

The reader follows along as Bonnie embodies these characters down to their commute, work, clothing, and conversation until she has done all she can to replicate that experience.

The problem is when reality creeps in and disrupts Bonnie's perfectly sitcom-manufactured world.

Are these threats real, or are they perceived?

Are these people she's created real or perceived?

What happened to Bonnie to fracture her mentality, and what happens if someone disrupts the order in her sitcom world?

This book is symbolic in how we all find ways to escape our reality, just on a grander scale. It asks us to examine what happens when we don't process trauma. It is also an immersive, unique experience that I can only liken to Wandavision.

It won't be for every reader, but it will be for many of you who don't mind book journeys that don't go into those happily ever after places we desire.

We will discuss this book and share some fun trivia about the sitcom inspiration for this book. As you have come to expect in our other chats, we will have lots to talk about as we learn about sitcom story-building.

Patrons will not only have full access to our interview series, they will also get to participate in three bonus selections this year. This is the second selection planned for the month of September. This was, additionally, another Reader's Choice selection for 2023.

I am so thrilled that so many of you wanted to discuss one of my favorite books of the year, and I want to share how I plant to enhance your experience with this book (whether you are a fan or not).

Gabrielle Zevin is a tried-and-true storyteller, but no one could have prepared me for the epic and sweeping journey she crafted for these characters in her latest book "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."

For three decades, we follow two unlikely friends who find each other in a children's hospital. Sadie's sister is receiving treatment for cancer, and Sam is recovering from a series of surgeries after a tragic car accident.

They bond over their shared love of video games in the gaming room of the hospital. However, when Sam discovers that Sadie has been tallying her visits to fulfill her bat mitzvah service, he feels like her charity project instead of a friend.

It ends the fast friendship abruptly, but they find one another again in college when Sadie shares another computer game she has been developing.

The two decide to develop a game together, which follows their success in the gaming industry with their first game. It also follows the consequences of virtual world-building when they build a world where all are welcome that ends in violence and the dissolution of their formed partnership.

Sam's chronic pain from his foot injury is written so beautifully and helps us understand the daily challenges of chronic pain and find peace with our disabilities when we face them.

This experience is unlike any other that a reader could imagine because Zevin writes each of the games for this company in beautiful and intricate ways that each feels fully fleshed out from idea to execution. I shared these scenes with my software developer husband, who was equally astounded by this remarkable execution.

One world she built, in particular, left me in a puddle on the ground. It is a journey within a journey within a journey. Publishers Weekly put it best when they said this book is a "one-of-a-kind achievement.

When it came to criticism of this selection (among book club members), it was often said that people did not understand or love video games in a way that they could feel connected to this storyline.

I plan to enhance that discussion by bringing in a cozy game content creator interview and a discussion from someone who worked in the start-up world and codes that allow us to understand what Zevin got right or what she got wrong in her story.

If you worry that cozy games could detract from your reading life, it helps to know that this is a great tandem activity when listening to audiobooks. The goal is to enhance your audiobook time and hopefully bring a deeper appreciation for this beautiful book.

I couldn't let October pass us by without an excellent horror selection for our month. This campy interactive book has a nostalgic VHS cover and uses 80's pop songs to inspire its chapters.

Please note that this book's digital version also includes images not contained within the paperback book.

Since the fourth grade, high school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends. One evening they decide to party with the cool kids, leading to a late-night skinny dipping that ends in a rather strange turn of events for Gretchen.

The book proposes this question: is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

Described as Beaches meets The Exorcist, I think this will be a nostalgically fun selection for so many of us.

This book lacked enough meat for an extensive book club discussion but is a delightful bonus selection for our smaller group to have a lot of fun together.

We can relish talking about some nostalgic elements celebrated in this horror novel. I love that this selection comes with its built-in Spotify playlist to read chapter by chapter.