Belletrist Book Club Picks

The Belletrist book club started in March 2017, with the inaugural pick of “South and West” by Joan Didion. Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss founded Belletrist, a community dedicated to books and book readers, in 2017 with the sweet story of noticing that through their thousands of text messages and phone calls over the years, they would ultimately keep asking each other: “What are you reading?”

The popularity of the Belletrist Book Club saw Emma and Karah launch a production company, Belletrist Productions, in 2019 and they have produced the Netflix TV series First Kill based on the short story by V.E. Schwab, and the Hulu show Tell Me Lies, based on the novel of the same name by Carola Lovering.

Belletrist Book Club Picks:

Get notified of new book club picks by the Belletrist Book Club - click here:

Category	Author	Title	Avg.
April 2017 Pick	Ariel Levy	The Rules Do Not Apply	8
April 2018 Pick	Kate Greathead	Laura & Emma	8.7
April 2019 Pick	Molly Dektar	The Ash Family	8.7
April 2020 Pick	Lily King	Writers and Lovers	8.8
April 2021 Pick	Donna Freitas	The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano	7
April 2022 Pick	Bethany C. Morrow	Cherish Farrah	8.3
April 2023 Pick	Leigh McMullan Abramson	A Likely Story	10
April 2024 Pick	Lisa Ko	Memory Piece	6
April 2025 Pick	Vauhini Vara	Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age	7.3
April 2026 Pick	Casey Scieszka	The Fountain	8.7
August 2017 Pick	Catherine Lacey	The Answers	10
August 2018 Pick	R.O. Kwon	The Incendiaries	7
August 2019 Pick	Sarah Elaine Smith	Marilou is Everywhere	8.3
August 2019 Pick	C.J. Hauser	Family of Origin	8
August 2020 Pick	Raven Leilani	Luster	7
August 2020 Pick	Sophie Mackintosh	Blue Ticket	7
August 2021 Pick	Violet Kupersmith	Build Your House Around My Body	7
August 2022 Pick	Gabrielle Zevin	Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow	7.8
August 2023 Pick	Maud Ventura	My Husband	8
August 2024 Pick	Kat Tang	Five-Star Stranger	7
August 2025 Pick	Molly Jong-Fast	How to Lose Your Mother	8
December 2017 Pick	Carmen Maria Machado	Her Body and Other Parties	7.2
December 2018 Pick	Oyinkan Braithwaite	My Sister, the Serial Killer	7.5
December 2019 Pick	Julia Armfield	Salt Slow	4
December 2020 Pick	V.E. Schwab	The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue	8.2
December 2021 Pick	Claire Vaye Watkins	I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness	5.3
December 2022 Pick	Meg Howrey	They're Going to Love You	6
December 2023 Pick	Susannah Breslin	Data Baby	8.3
December 2024 Pick	Marisha Pessl	Darkly	6.5
December 2025 Pick	Aja Gabel	Lightbreakers	7.3
February 2018 Pick	Tayari Jones	An American Marriage	7.4
February 2019 Pick	Sarah McColl	Joy Enough	7.7
February 2020 Pick	Caroline Zancan	We Wish You Luck	8
February 2021 Pick	Dantiel W. Moniz	Milk Blood Heat	9
February 2021 Pick	Melissa Broder	Milk Fed	7.5
February 2022 Pick	Heather O'Neill	When We Lost Our Heads	6
February 2023 Pick	Dizz Tate	Brutes	6
February 2024 Pick	Sarah Gailey	Just Like Home	5.3
February 2025 Pick	Grégoire Bouillier	The Mystery Guest	8
February 2026 Pick	Belle Burden	Strangers	8.8
January 2018 Pick	Chloe Benjamin	The Immortalists	7.5
January 2019 Pick	Karen Thompson Walker	The Dreamers	7.4
January 2020 Pick	Crissy Meter	Creatures	10
January 2021 Pick	Anna North	Outlawed	8
January 2022 Pick	Jean Chen Ho	Fiona and Jane	6
January 2023 Pick	Sarah Thankam Mathews	All This Could Be Different	8.6
January 2024 Pick	Jenny Xie	Holding Pattern	9.7
January 2025 Pick	Sarah Hoover	The Motherload	8.7
January 2026 Pick	Madeline Cash	Lost Lambs	8.3
July 2017 Pick	Eve Babitz	Sex & Rage	7.3
July 2018 Pick	Alice Bolin	Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession	8
July 2018 Pick	Casey Legler	Godspeed	7.3
July 2019 Pick	Lisa Taddeo	Three Women	7.3
July 2020 Pick	Wayétu Moore	The Dragons, the Giant, the Women	6
July 2021 Pick	Lisa Taddeo	Animal	7
July 2022 Pick	Lauren McBrayer	Like a House on Fire	7.3
July 2023 Pick	Emma Cline	The Guest	7.2
July 2024 Pick	Taffy Brodesser-Akner	Long Island Compromise	7.8
July 2025 Pick	Austin Taylor	Notes on Infinity	4.7
July 2026 Pick	Meg Charlton	Voyagers
June 2017 Pick	Courtney Maum	Touch	8
June 2018 Pick	Hannah Pittard	Visible Empire	9
June 2019 Pick	Jean Kwok	Searching for Sylvie Lee	6.4
June 2020 Pick	Brit Bennett	The Vanishing Half	8.1
June 2021 Pick	Brenda Peynado	The Rock Eaters	6.7
June 2022 Pick	Maria Adelmann	How to Be Eaten	7
June 2023 Pick	Ore Agbaje-Williams	The Three of Us	8
June 2024 Pick	Griffin Dunne	The Friday Afternoon Club	7.7
June 2025 Pick	Rochelle Dowden-Lord	Lush	8
June 2026 Pick	Claire Fuller	Hunger and Thirst
March 2017 Pick	Joan Didion	South and West	8.3
March 2018 Pick	Ben Dolnick	The Ghost Notebooks	8.7
March 2019 Pick	Helen Oyeyemi	Gingerbread	6
March 2020 Pick	Maisy Card	These Ghosts Are Family	9
March 2021 Pick	Hala Alyan	The Arsonists' City	8
March 2022 Pick	Silvia Vasquez-Lavado	In the Shadow of the Mountain	9.3
March 2023 Pick	Claire Jimenez	What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez	6
March 2024 Pick	Lottie Hazell	Piglet	9.5
March 2025 Pick	Karen Thompson Walker	The Strange Case of Jane O.	6
March 2026 Pick	Kim Fu	The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts	6
May 2017 Pick	Julie Buntin	Marlena	6
May 2018 Pick	Chibundu Onuzo	Welcome to Lagos	9
May 2019 Pick	Joanne Ramos	The Farm	4
May 2020 Pick	Anna Solomon	The Book of V.	10
May 2021 Pick	Margaret Kimball	And Now I Spill the Family Secrets	7.3
May 2022 Pick	Jennifer Egan	The Candy House	7.5
May 2023 Pick	Hanna Halperin	I Could Live Here Forever	8.7
May 2024 Pick	Elwin Cotman	Weird Black Girls	8.7
May 2025 Pick	Colum McCann	Twist	5.5
May 2026 Pick	Kiran Millwood Hargrave	Almost Life
November 2017 Pick	Megan Hunter	The End We Start From	6.7
November 2018 Pick	Patricia Miller	Bringing Down the Colonel	9.3
November 2019 Pick	Adrienne Brodeur	Wild Game	7.7
November 2020 Pick	Shirley Hazzard	The Collected Stories of Shirley Hazzard	6.3
November 2021 Pick	Asali Solomon	The Days of Afrekete	4
November 2022 Pick	Octavia E. Butler	Fledgling	7.3
November 2023 Pick	Banana Yoshimoto	The Premonition	4
November 2024 Pick	Lili Anolik	Didion and Babitz	7.7
November 2025 Pick	Eric Heisserer	Simultaneous	6
October 2017 Pick	Samantha Hunt	The Dark Dark	7.7
October 2018 Pick	Alyson Hagy	Scribe	8
October 2018 Pick	Laird Hunt	In the House in the Dark of the Woods	8
October 2019 Pick	Jacqueline Woodson	Red at the Bone	7.4
October 2020 Pick	Quan Barry	We Ride Upon Sticks	8.3
October 2021 Pick	Tananarive Due	The Between	10
October 2022 Pick	Ainslie Hogarth	Motherthing	5.8
October 2023 Pick	Melissa Broder	Death Valley	8.7
October 2024 Pick	Sally Rooney	Intermezzo	8.5
October 2025 Pick	Patricia Lockwood	Will There Ever Be Another You	8
September 2017 Pick	Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀	Stay with Me	8
September 2018 Pick	Eudora Welty	The Optimist's Daughter	8
September 2019 Pick	Rosie Price	What Red Was	7
September 2020 Pick	Emily Temple	The Lightness	7
September 2021 Pick	Meredith Westgate	The Shimmering State	7.7
September 2022 Pick	Jonathan Escoffery	If I Survive You	10
September 2023 Pick	Angie Kim	Happiness Falls	7.3
September 2024 Pick	Molly Aitken	Bright I Burn	8
September 2025 Pick	Loretta Rothschild	Finding Grace	8.4

Belletrist Book Club F.A.Q.

When are new picks made by the Belletrist Book Club?

Books are usually picked on the first week of each month by the Belletrist Book Club, for that month, and promptly listed above.

When did the Belletrist Book Club begin?

It was founded and began in March 2017.

Is there any specific rules the Belletrist Book Club has in regards to their books?

Their main goal is to have a community where people can discuss the same book. The books that the Belletrist Book Club have picked over the years cover a wide variety of genres.