A Ghosty Holiday Read
This month, the club officially chose to read Good Spirits by B.K. Borison. This was a very popular pick, but I have to admit that I had my reservations as I began reading. Initially, it gave A Christmas Carol vibes, and I was not feeling like reading a Dickens retelling. Plus, I had just finished a particularly funny holiday read (Meghan Quinn’s Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal), and was not in the mood for anything somber or involving ghosts.
The main characters were a hot Ghost of Christmas Past and an overall lovely and all-too-loving girl named Harriet who is in love with Christmas. Together, they revisit her memories, many of which involved having an unkind family dynamic, in hopes of finding where she has gone wrong in her life. I wasn’t into it. Who wants to be haunted during the Christmas season? Or revisit awful memories??
But…about 100 pages in, our ghost’s magic begins to go haywire and they begin traveling backward in time to revisit his past, and it is clear that nothing is as it should be. Our hot ghost also manages to fall in love with Harriet rather quickly, and through some kind of magic that I do not understand but could definitely appreciate, he has enough of a physical form for their connection to really blossom, if you know what I mean.
Basically, the story quickly pivoted from a haunting to a story about two souls who are destined to find one another, and I’d be lying if I said that I am not a sucker for destiny. By the time the story ended, I was in deep, hoping that these two would find a way to be together—time, distance, and corporeality be damned. It did not disappoint. If that’s your flavor for holiday magic, you cannot go wrong with this one.
On the importance of book clubs and building connection.
When I had the idea for this book club last December, I was honestly hoping to create the kind of space that I was craving and couldn’t seem to find in real life. I was looking for a community of people who enjoyed reading the same kinds of books as me, but also who I would enjoy spending time with. It felt like a tough ask from the universe!
I joined Booktok and was surprised to see so many content creators focusing on books, particularly romance, and I could tell that I was on the right track. I began finding people I could connect with, somebody mentioned the Fable app for clubs, and slowly but surely, our book club grew one member at a time.
Immediately, I was struck by the number of people who were looking for the same kind of connection that I was. It turns out that not every town has a romance book store (though they are growing in popularity!), romance book clubs, or places for women to connect with one another about what they enjoy reading. I was very happy to have built a space where we could connect over our love of reading no matter where we were in the world or how busy our schedules could be. The online platform itself really promised that time zones wouldn’t stop us from connecting, and there really wasn’t pressure to read at a specific pace because connection could happen at any time throughout the month.
The thing that surprised me, though, was ultimately how kind people could be. I expected that a book club could be full of enthusiasm about books, but I didn’t realize how much of the excitement and connection would spill out from the Fable app and into social media accounts. Women supporting women, especially their creativity, turned out to be the best part about the book club. Growing a community of people who enjoy interacting and bonding over what they love truly became the focal point of the space.
And honestly, now that the club has been around long enough to see people weather storms (big moves, illness, surgery), it’s becoming clearer to me that human connection and support was always the point. Giving people a space to share, create, and be themselves was always the point. And I feel truly grateful to be a part of something that brings people joy. The really good book selections every month are just the cherry on top.
If It Makes You Happy by Julie Olivia
Our November book club pick turned out to be a smashing success—(shoutout to Jessica V. for nominating it!). Not only was it a cozy fall read, but it was an adorable peek back in time to 1997. For those of you who weren’t born yet, 1997 was a simpler time, filled with all sorts of fun cultural moments (tomagotchis! landlines! the Spice Girls! people running past airport security in movies!), and this book was a tribute to so many of those details that I had somehow forgotten. Remember when Clinton was president? We could go on like this all day.
I had also forgotten that movies and stories back then also had characters, especially parents, who seemed incapable of relating to children. This was a theme throughout the novel, and it definitely brought me back to the era of teenage angst. How I wanted to slap Cliff’s ex! Also, who puts their kids on a Greyhound bus to New York??? In a way, it was actually pretty fun to remember the way that 90s kids grew up, particularly since so many of those parental choices would no longer be acceptable in modern society.
I spent so much of the book letting my mind wander back to who I was in 1997, and what I loved about that time, and that alone made the experience worthwhile. But, the story itself was fun. Cliff and Michelle were a grumpy-sunshine, slow burn, opposites-attract duo, and I really enjoyed watching their relationship develop over time. I will admit that Michelle’s attitude was challenging at times, but Cliff seemed into it, so who am I to judge?! Jokes aside, the thing that made this book so cozy was actually the cast of characters that made up the found-family that Michelle desperately needed post-divorce. I LOVED Cliff’s girls and the addition of Rocket, Michelle’s dog, who had his own dialogue throughout (also very 90s!). If you are looking for a little nostalgic rom-com set in Vermont while the seasons turn, this one is for you. It’s also for you if your type is baker dads who yearn.
Read what the club is saying about it in our Fable chat here.