The Banned Books Club Review

The Banned Books Club by Brenda Novak

The Banned Books Club was difficult to put down once I picked it up, but finished with an amazing sense of finality.

I chose this book when Justin and I went to Hyperbole Bookstore in College Station the day after Christmas, and I immediately started reading it.

Summary: Gia returns to her hometown at the behest of her sister, Margot, for the winter to help care for their dying mother. Gia, however, finds herself falling for the most unlikely candidate - Cormac Hart, her parent's backyard neighbor and the son of her former English teacher, Evan Hart, whom she accused of molesting her in high school. If you are expecting The Banned Books Club to be about a club of people discussing banned books, think again. Gia created the Banned Books Club in high school. Seventeen years later, the club is still semi-active virtually. But when Gia returns home, she decides to have an in-person Christmas party and inadvertently announces her return to the town with the invitation. She is greeted with the town still split on whether or not Mr. Hart actually molested Gia or she made it up for a higher grade. That is until Mr. Hart's son, Cormac, begins questioning everything he has ever believed about the incident. Meanwhile, Gia's sister, Margot, runs away with her children from her abusive, cheating husband while he is gone on a hunting trip. Thinking Gia and their parents know more than they do, he begins to rain threats and violence down on their household.

Review: I gave The Banned Books Club 4 stars. I cannot rave enough about the depths and dynamics of the various relationships in The Banned Books Club. The content warnings for the book (I have listed below) should be strongly considered if you have sensitivities to trauma before diving in too quickly. Brenda does an excellent job of walking a fine line with each trauma/conflict and how they are handled. I was never left feeling put out or disgusted like other books have left me - proving the storytelling in this book is a work of art.

I was not a fan of Cormac's sister, Louisa and Edith. They were grown women with children of their own looking for conflict for most of the book and honestly acted like petulant, whiny, insecure children. The flop in their opinion of Gia and her story about their father didn't feel very realistic to me after their prior behaviors. And their husbands' blind support of them causing a scene and humiliating a woman in public over a 17 year old issue was a little too dramatic and also unrealistic for my taste.

Quotes:

• Getting close to someone required too much trust - more trust than she seemed to be capable of cobbling together. So whenever a romantic relationship began to grow serious, she'd break away and move on, and that usually only took a few months.

• "We might not always agree with the stances she takes, but there has to be someone willing to fight people who ban good books and do other stupid things."

Overall, I had few complaints about the story. I really enjoyed reading it and look forward to reading more of Brenda's books. I have already been recommending the book to friends.

**Content Warnings**

The Banned Books Club discusses verbal and emotional abuse, spousal control, sexual misconduct (molestation) of a student by a teacher, alcohol abuse, hoarding, mental health, violence, cheating on a spouse, public confrontations, cancer, and a parent dying. Some of these subjects may not be upsetting to you, but could effect others. This may not be a full list of conflicts and traumas, but are the most prominent ones that should be noted.