Finding a community of people who love reading books as much as you do is top tier — especially when you gather to talk about your favorite book club finds. Since we're having a hard time choosing our favorite celebrity book club at Brit + Co, we're introducing you to another one filled with all the cool girl reads. That's right — the Belletrist book club by besties Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss is the next thing that should be on your literary list.
It's also worth mentioning Belletrist is partnering with online bookstore Tertulia to bring you an exclusive paid membership subscription! Members will receive Emma and Karah's picks each month along with access to interviews, and a "limited edition Belletrist hat," (via PEOPLE). Karah said, "Our aim has always been to deepen the connection between readers and books, and help facilitate conversation with community members."
Created in 2017, Belletrist features bookswith tales that'll have you on the edge of your seat, and we've got 31 worth adding to your TBR pile!
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Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik (November 12, 204)
Belletrist's latest book club pick is Didion & Babitz, written by the brilliant author Lili Anolik. Talking to PEOPLE, Emma Roberts revealed the reason she chose this read. "Joan Didion was the first writer I truly loved as an adult person," she said and even went as far as admit she feels a personal connection to Didion's words.
As brilliant of a writer as she was, Joan had a complicated relationship with Eve Babitz. They started as close friends, but time gave way to sour feelings. Truthfully, Eve was the only person who truly understood Joan and was able to decode the mysterious nature of her former friend. It is through her letters that Anolik was able to pen this eye-opening novel.
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Peter and Ivan Koubek may be brothers, but that doesn't mean they have the same interests or thought patterns. Peter is the oldest and has been managing a very successful career as a lawyer while Ivan is twenty-something social misfit. Their lives drastically shift with the death of their father, leading to Peter finding vices to numb his pain and Ivan growing closer to an older woman name Margaret.
Somehow, the two Koubek brothers find themselves and love as they stumble through the world in the aftermath of their father's death.
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What would you do if you rent someone to play the perfect role in your life? In Five-Star Stranger, Stranger finds himself striking a high chord with those who've used his services in the past. He's been able to assume several identities for the right price and has never gotten involved with his clients.
But someone has their eyes on destroying his careful image, especially since he's been pretending to have a family that involves a woman and her child. This makes him begin exploring his abandonment issues which have led him to offer himself up for strangers' brief needs.
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During the '80s, teenagers Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng dealt with insecurity surrounding their identities. The other thing that had in common was their ambitions which created a deep bond between them. But adulthood became something they weren't entirely prepared for.
Giselle finds herself in a social world she's unfamiliar with, Jackie is battling capitalism within the coding industry, and Ellen's facing legal injustice in the NYC neighborhood she lives in. As they grow, their friendship moves past surface level and they're met with changing goals in Memory Piece.
Piglet by Lottie Hazell
Piglet's career as a cookbook editor is flourishing and she couldn't be happier. After all, this type of success is meant to be celebrated at every turn and she's been reveling in it. Surrounded by people she loves and who love her, she feels like nothing can stand in her way. But when Kit commits an offense that's soul crushing, Piglet's appetite for more than her life has afforded her increases. Caught between living the life she has and desiring more, her 'erratic' behavior becomes her saving grace.
Kathleen Cheng feels like her life is a huge wreck after her relationship ends and she decides graduate school isn't for her. This leads her back to Oakland and she's not quite comfortable with being clueless about what to do with herself. This wouldn't be so weird if her mom, Marissa Cheng, wasn't different from the mother she had growing up. This version of her mom is happily in love and enlists Kathleen's help to plan her wedding.
When Kathleen gets a job at Marissa's fiancé's startup, she slowly begins to work through limiting beliefs about love and life, and forms a close bond with someone as a result. By the end of Holding Pattern, readers will love seeing how one's disruptions in life can be used to push them in a much better direction.
When Ruthy Ramirez goes missing, it rattles the Ramirez family but they ultimately decide to learn to live with their loss. However, a chance sighting by her sister Jessica leads them down a path that they hope will give them answers about what happened to her. What the Ramirez women don't anticipate is how their journey to finding her will change them in more ways than one.
Trigger Warning: This book contains drug use.
There are some people who believe in love at first sight and Leah Kempler is one of them. After meeting the most charismatic man she's ever known (Charlie Nelson), she falls head over heels in love with him. He's perfect if you don't count the weird habits everyone around Leah is worried about. It reads as a cautionary tale that unfolds the truth behind loving someone to the point you can't see any damaging red flags.
The Guest tackles the issue of who belongs to upper society and what happens to those who are shunned from it. Despite being told to leave Long Island, Alex decides to take matters in her own hands by staying. However, she has plans to make her presence known whether people like it or not.
My Husbandby Maud Ventura; Translated by Emma Ramadan
Sometimes our suspicions are nothing more than figments of our imaginations because nothing is capable of going well for a long period of time — right? In My Husband, one woman comes to terms with her own insecurities and how they're harming her marriage.
When We Lost Our Heads explores an unlikely and sometimes dangerous friendship that develops between two girls. Although Marie Antoine and Sadie Arnett are banned from spending time together, something keeps drawing them near each other. Is it fate, or something unspoken in their hearts?
Young Farrah Turner is a walking contradiction whose inner turmoil influences her actions when her parents' problems lead her to stay with her best friend's family. The Whitmans readily welcome Farrah into their home but Farrah begins to suspect she's not the only one who has ulterior motives. Will her friendship with Cherish Whitman survive or will everything Farrah thought she knew about the community she lives in be exposed as something else?
Maria Adelmanturns folk and fairy tales upside down in this gripping page-turner. From a woman who's trapped in a relationship with a man who has an odd-colored beard to one who's been searching for her perfect love, How to Be Eaten will show readers the darker side of comfort tales by daring us to think beyond what we think we know.
Like a House on Fire is a painfully beautiful tale of a woman who begins to question the life she's living. While Merit is grateful for her husband and kids, she can't help but feel unfulfilled. However, things begin to change after she's hired by Jane at the architect firm Jager + Brandt. Will Merit rediscover who she is or find that the missing piece of her life involves someone who isn't her husband?
Trigger warning: This book mentions suicide.
Motherthing takes the classic 'mother-in-law from hell' trope to a dangerous level when a couple moves in with the husband's mother. Despite Abby Lamb's best efforts, her mother-in-law is more interested in making her life as miserable as possible. Just when she thinks things can't get worse, her mother-in-law commits suicide and begins wrecking supernatural havoc. Will Abby be able to keep her marriage and job intact in the midst of dealing with hatred from beyond the grave? Read Motherthing to find out!
Through no real fault of her own, Ada becomes an outlaw after 'failing' to become pregnant after getting married. Outlawed seeks to challenge the burden placed on women during frontier days with this tale filled with courage and hope.
Who would you be if you have a certain number of times to make different choices? The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano looks to answer this by sending its main character of the same name down a journey that involves motherhood. Unsure of whether this role fits in her life or not, Rose is faced with the consequences of her decisions throughout this thought-provoking novel.
Sometimes ghosts are meant to help us more than they haunt us and that's what Build Your House Around My Body aims to show readers. Filled with key two vanishings and unexplained happenings at a familiar farmhouse, history is in for a surprise in this poignant tale.
Dealing with the effects of postpartum depression, a writer comes face to face with the past she thought she'd outrun. From finally coming to terms with her father's involvement in a dangerous cult to more unspoken things, she realizes it's now or never when deciding to find her footing.
Hannah, Leslie, and Jimmy are three graduate students whose charisma is the talk of the campus. They're downright irresistible for a number of reasons and when the brilliant Simone joins their trio? There's no stopping them — until Simone does the unthinkable.
The identical Vignes twins may look alike, but their lives couldn't be more different. While one sister chooses to remain in the south with her daughter, the other builds a life that involves being dishonest about who she really is. When their paths cross again, will the sisters recognize each other or will they take fault with the lives they've individually built?
Blue Ticket opens the door to a lottery that differs from winning a life-changing amount of money. Instead, women are given the choice to lead lives based on the ticket they receive. However, pregnant Calla is terrified of the consequences of her making a choice that differs from the ticket she's been given and ends up on an unforgettable journey.
The Farm is an alarming tale of what happens when one woman trades her freedom for nine months to secure a place where she's guaranteed food and shelter. The only problem? She's forbidden from leaving Golden Oaks during her pregnancy. Will she follow the rules or find a way to save her sanity at the cost of losing what once felt like a dream come true?
What happens when siblings are left alone for an extended period of time? They begin finding a way to survive even if it's unconventional or illegal. In Marilou Is Everywhere, young Cindy takes on missing Jude Vanderjohn's identity and begins living a better life. But as guilt starts to eat away at her, she has to decide if telling the truth is worth going back to the loveless and hard life she previously knew.
Red at the Bone is a moving novel that seeks to understand one's family origins and the events that shaped life as teenaged Melody knows it. It peels back layers of the Tulsa race massacre that occurred in 1921 among other things that young people often have to face in a world that would rather turn a blind eye to who they are.
Wild Gameby Adrienne Brodeur
Having your mother confide in you can feel amazing...unless she's asking you to harbor secrets that involve her growing affair with your dad's best friend. Unfortunately for Adrienne, her mother does just that, changing the course of her life.
After four siblings decide to learn their fate from a mysterious psychic, their lives become defined in different ways. It's a tale that shows the lives people would live if they knew the exact moment they would die. Instead of reading like a tale that mirrors Final Destination, The Immortalists goes deeper and offers hope throughout its pages.
Godspeed follows Casey Legler's life as a successful teen swimmer who's struggling with alcoholism that's caused by her intense training and feeling separated from those close to her. When she hits rock bottom, she somehow finds the strength to see herself differently and choose to live life in a way that doesn't feel so isolated.
If the name of this novel doesn't intrigue you, I'm not sure what will! My Sister The Serial Killer follows Korede as she tries to come to terms with her sister Ayoola's killer nature — literally. However, things begin to change when Korede develops a crush on a doctor who's more interested in Ayoola. Will Korede do everything she can to protect her sister or will she decide to be truthful about who her sister really is?
Ariel Levy decides to raise a middle finger to the idea that she should be a softer woman, and she leans into the things people say she should change about herself. This takes her on an amazing adventure that's halted when she realizes she can't control everything like she thought she could. It's a novel that deals with understanding which parts of ourselves are okay to let go and which ones are worth holding on to.
Touchby Courtney Maum
Sloane Jacobsen may be a successful trend forecaster but she feels like her life is a walking contradiction. Suddenly, she finds that her professional work is being derailed by a change of heart — her own. Instead of believing that virtual relationships are rising, she feels the opposite. Caught between her heart and intuition, Sloane must make a choice that will change how she and others relate to each other.
To see the full Belletrist book club list, click here!
Which cool girl reads from the Belletrist book club will you add to your literary list before the end of 2023?
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This post has been updated.
