MCL - Read With Jenna Book Club

The story of a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Capturing her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories, she is able to rise above hopelessness and create a quiet space for herself in the midst of her oppressive surroundings.

"Jen has dumped Andy, and he's handling the breakup in exactly the way all his friends and family might have expected: very, very badly. Crashing at his mother's house and obsessively photographing his hairline, Andy embraces the rites and rituals of every breakup-the ill-advised decision to move onto a houseboat, the forced merriment of a lads' night out, the accidental late-night text to the ex-all resulting in a never-ending shame spiral. Even...

"Adam, a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, is approached by a mysterious figure with a surprising request: Will he join a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls? Adam agrees and begins taking testimonies from his students, friends, and neighbors. One of the people he interviews is his flatmate Sala, who is stoic, determined, and funny-- and married with two children. Over the months of their confinement,...

"Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair's father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman's highest virtue was her obedience. In an...

A poor girl overcomes temptation and succeeds in life. It happens when she befriends a rich girl whose father offers to pay her college tuition. It is not easy, the rich one, now turned playgirl, tempting her away from studies with boys.

"It's been a minute-or five years-since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Over the years they've reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living...

"In a near-future northern settlement, the fate of a young woman intertwines with those of a college professor and a collective of women soldiers in this mesmerizing and transportive novel in the vein of Station Eleven and The Power. In the far north of Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is building a project called Camp Zero. With its fresh, clean air and cold climate, it's intended to be the beginning of a new community and a new...

""An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys--and the guilt--of trying to find your own way in life." --Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author "Meeting Maame feels like falling in love for the first time: warm, awkward, joyous, a little bit heartbreaking and, most of all, unforgettable." --Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means...

Richard Papen had never been to New England before his nineteenth year. Then he arrived at Hampden College and quickly became seduced by the sweet, dark rhythms of campus life -- in particular by an elite group of five students, Greek scholars, worldly, self-assured, and at first glance, highly unapproachable. "Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover...

"An utterly enchanting, immersive novel about an irrepressible young heroine who becomes an undercover agent during World War II-a sparkling debut, by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking. One blustery night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel. By law, all whales belong to the King, but twelve-year-old Cristabel Seagrave has other plans. She and the rest of the household and their guests-her sister, Flossie (known affectionately...