The December 2023 Celebrity Book Club Spoilers to Enjoy Now

Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman

December 2023 Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

Bess, Joni, and Evangeline were best friends until the summer before college, they traveled to Greece and Evangeline died. Ten years later, Joni is now implicated in a similar crime and Bess is her alibi.

Reminiscent of the Amanda Knox trial, we see flashbacks of what happened all those years ago and follow Bess as she tries to discover if Joni is innocent. I enjoyed this story on my recent vacation.

We Must Not Think of Ourselves by Lauren Grodstein

December 2023 Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

This incredible novel is based on the true story of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants who recorded what life was like for their fellow occupants. Adam, the protagonist, is one of several secret archivists working to capture the truth of life within the ghetto.

The story takes us through Adam’s life as he records testimonies from his friends and neighbors, but also gives us an in-depth look at his drive to survive the Nazis. I was deeply moved by the intimate look at what Jews went through during that dark period, but this is a hard one to read in the current climate because it feels a breath away from happening today.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

December 2023 Good Morning America Book Club Pick

I’m so excited to read this pick from the December 2023 new releases. This historical mystery is inspired by the diary of Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife, who investigated a murder in her small community. When a man found entombed in ice, also happens to be the same man accused of an attack, Martha is sure what happened, and six justice on behalf of those that no one else wants to protect.

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

October 2023 Oprah Book Club Pick

Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
 
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.

From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages. MORE