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Hi there, I am looking for a couple suggestions for reading with my book club (all moms in 30s and 40s) to get us out of our historical and contemporary fiction rut. In the past we have read and really enjoyed Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. We also read The Philosopher's Flight by Tom Miller, with half of us loving it and half of us hating it. I would prefer standalone books as opposed to series, with a cap of around 400 pages or so (that's all a few of the women in my group can commit to in one month).

Thank you!

Give Emmi Itaranta a look.

Her Memory of Water and The Weaver are both dystopians. The former is eco-dystopian and sort of reminds me of the feeling of Station Eleven, and the latter is also eco-dystopian but with a bit more fantasy.


They are a bit YA though...


I have to sing the praises of Katherine Arden's Winternight Trilogy (only exception to the series rule, promise). It's just so good, and is only three books and they're all out.

I was on the fence on recommending The Chess Garden by Brookes Hansen because I wasn't sure about the page count...
Turns out it's just over 400, so if that is doable, I highly recommend.

Thank you! I will check these out. I realized after posting this that I have a lot of requirements, so I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

I highly recommend Severance by Ling Ma, especially if your group enjoys contemporary fiction. It's an apocalyptic story about a young woman living in a world in which everyone is succumbing to a zombie-like sickness. It's about the choices she makes to survive and the people she meets along the way. It's a real page-turner and also quick at about 300 pages.

The power by Naomi Alderman. Check out this description from my library database

When a new force takes hold of the world, people from different areas of life are forced to cross paths in an alternate reality that gives women and teenage girls immense physical power that can cause pain and death.