Can our main characters make it to the end of these in one piece?

Surviving The Elements

This Wretched Valley - Jenny Kiefer

Briardark - S.A. Harian

Dark Matter - Michelle Paver

Surviving People

The Cabin At The End Of The World - Paul Tremblay

The Laws of The Skies - Gregoire Courtois

Brother - Ania Ahlborn

Surviving Creatures

The Watchers - A.M. Shine

The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones

Pearl - Josh Malerman

Surviving The Journey

A Short Stay In Hell - Steven Peck

The Hike - Drew Magary

The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino Iglesias

Surviving the Demonic Possession

Goddess Of Filth - V Castro

Pinata - Leopoldo Gout

The Dark Becomes Her - Judy Lin

I'm excited for our first live this Friday (7/18) 8:45PM CST! It'll be over on Discord. We will start with talking about how the Earthling book club will work/schedule and then do some reading sprints! Grab the book or whatever book you're wanting to read!

Next week we will probably talk book club and then a game night (still learning Discord but we should be set by next week!)

I'm so excited to see y'all there!

Book Club Pick: Out by Natsuo Kirino

Discord Live Event

Click here to get to the live event ^

Should you buy or check out at the library?

This starts with a woman named Julia who is out with her husband one night. Someone comes up and attacks them and ends up killing her husband. She looks at her horoscope for that day and realizes that she could've saved his life, if she knew. She ends up receiving an inheritance from a woman she doesn't know in Italy. When she gets to the villa that now belongs to her, there are secrets within the walls. She feels like someone is after her, especially after someone close to her ends up in a tragic accident.

I liked this one okay, but wow there was a lot going on. From the horoscope to whatever is going on in the villa and whoever is following her. The insta love in this one threw me completely off and have no idea why it was even included. She witnessed her husband die, not long after she's saying she loves another man?? It doesn't make sense to me. I thought this story was trying to do too much, and I ended up not really caring about any of it.

Wait for your library!

Excited for our very first book club! I've included a poll to figure out which book we will go with first!

Whatever book we decide to go with, we will meet weekly at the chosen stopping point over on Discord in the earthlings chat!

I'll be posting summary and thoughts of each section on here in case you miss the chat!

I'll let everyone know tomorrow what the pick is!

General Discord Chat

^ Click here!

I've opened up a general Discord for everyone! Place to chat about books and all community updates and to keep in touch with everyone :) Let me know if the link doesn't work!

Earthlings! Stay tuned for our new book club announcement!

Should you pre-order or wait until it's available at the library?

Crafting For Sinners by Jenny Kiefer follows a woman named Ruth living in a small very religious town with her girlfriend Abigail. The 2 have lived together since she broke up with her fiance Charlie and was disowned by her parents. She began working at a craft store and tried being a star employee but they fired her regardless due to her being in a relationship with a woman. She begins finding odd jobs including knitting blankets. She runs to the craft store one night for an order where she will soon realize she is trapped with the religious cult who have taken over her town.

This starts off with a true crime podcast covering the cold case of the disappearance of a man named Tom and throughout we get bits of this podcast and you're unsure why this case matters to the story until the end. The podcast was a great aspect of this story as it shows the broader picture of what's happening and leaves you questioning everything.

Ruth felt like a real person to me. She frustrated me in some scenes and others she showed just how much of a badass she truly is. She found her strength and power in this story and it is my favorite character growth that I've seen in a long time. Mind you, this takes place in less than 24 hours.

While I physically read this, I think it could make for a great audiobook with the mixed media aspects included. I loved physically reading so I could see the newspaper clippings and letters as well. There's no wrong way to go about reading this one!

I overall LOVED this story and definitely think it's worth a preorder. It's fast paced, edge of your seat with a completely explosive ending

Obviously this is a very subjective topic. I have zero credentials, I am just a person with too many opinions. I love some "over-hyped" books and I have some thoughts on others. I try to be kind/constructive when negatively reviewing books on my public profiles but here I want to let it all out! Also please don't be mad at me lol ***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

The Perfect Marriage - Jeneva Rose Starting with something I've already said but there's a scene (that does not need to be included at all) where the MC needs to "let off steam" and it's mentioned that "someone" walks in. Now that doesn't have to be a bad thing but it's not revealed who that "someone" is until the end. Honestly it just felt like lazy writing or it's insulting to the reader. My thought is that the author didn't know where she was going until she got to the end and pulled a name out of a hat. It's great pacing but it's definitely a popcorn thriller and I can't imagine how the rest of the series goes.

No Exit - Taylor Adams I was shocked that this is the same author who wrote The Last Word. First, the main character kept making bad decision after bad decision. I got to the point where I wasn't even frustrated with her, I predicted the worst possible thing someone could do in this situation and sure enough she would do that. While I do love an action packed thriller, it got to a point where there is almost no suspense. I did really want to love this and I actually did enjoy how it ended but it was more frustrating than anything.

Daisy Darker - Alice Feeney This is the only book I've read from Alice Feeney and I DO plan on picking something else up from the author. (Let me know what else I should pick up, I'm thinking Beautiful Ugly?) I could not stand the Pinterest level quote at the end of every single chapter. It's like it was trying to wise or build tension but I found myself rolling my eyes more than anything. The pacing is quite awful and the constant complaining from our MC made for a very long reading experience. As the youngest sibling myself, of course you couldn't go to the high school party, YOU'RE 10??? Obviously more happens that night but I don't think you're the unloved child because you weren't allowed to do things your older siblings did. I thought it was strange to hold onto grudges like this well into adulthood. If I didn't buy this book and have a physical copy it would have been a DNF.

**For the sake of space, I've linked the books so you can read description if you want!