The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls ~ Julie Schumacher

Title: The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls
Author: Julie Schumacher
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Pub Date: May 8, 2012

(Borrowed from GoodReads)
I'm Adrienne Haus, survivor of a mother-daughter book club. Most of us didn't want to join. My mother signed me up because I was stuck at home all summer, with my knee in a brace. CeeCee's parents forced her to join after cancelling her Paris trip because she bashed up their car. The members of "The Unbearable Book Club," CeeCee, Jill, Wallis, and I, were all going into eleventh grade A.P. English. But we weren't friends. We were literary prisoners, sweating, reading classics, and hanging out at the pool. If you want to find out how membership in a book club can end up with a person being dead, you can probably look us up under mother-daughter literary catastrophe. Or open this book and read my essay, which I'll turn in when I go back to school.



When this book showed up on NetGalley, I grabbed it. But I left it on my Nook, debating if I wanted to read it or not. But I decided to read it-I've kind of been on a Contemporary kick lately and wanted another one. Immediately I was hooked. This book was just so much MORE than I could have hoped for!

The story starts with an assignment page for an 11th Grade AP English class. Adrienne Haus is the protagonist (to use some of her literary terms) and she is the voice of the novel. At the end of her essay opening she states "And I'll explain how the books affected me-because whoever I was a the beginning of the summer, I am not that person anymore." This statement set the tone for the novel and I needed to know HOW she was different.

Four girls, three mothers, one summer book club. And none of the girls are friends or even really know or like each other, but somehow, it works. Through Adrienne we learn about each girl, and we see how the summer affected them and brought on growth for them. Will the events that took place during the fifth and final meeting mean the end for their tenuous friendship, or will the school year bring on something completely new and different?

I loved Adrienne's voice. She was snarky, sarcastic, yet lovable and lost. I felt connected to her and hurt when she hurt. Her relationship with her mother felt real-more real than other YA novels.

You will not be disappointed with this book!