Inside: The Happy Simple Mom book club picks 2024
Eek! This is my very first online book club year, and I’m super excited about getting together with other Happy Simple Mom readers to discuss great books.
If you haven’t already, please join the Happy Simple Mom Book Club Facebook group.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link, I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Read my full disclosure policy.

My goal in choosing books for the Happy Simple Mom Book Club:
- I wanted books that could easily be read in a month. (Here’s looking at you Little Women and Outlander still sitting on my bookshelf unread. Soon though….soon.)
- I wanted a variety of books from different genres.
- I wanted to include at least one non-fiction book.
- I wanted to include at least one young adult book. I encourage you to read aloud this book (or listen to it on your car rides) with your kids or grandkids.
- I wanted to include one new release book. I usually borrow new books or buy them used. Every once in a while, I like to spoil myself with a brand-new book. It’s rare, but it always feels like a treat.
- I like to include at least one or two books that have been turned into a movie or television series. (These books also work well for book clubs when not everyone can finish the book before the meeting. I never want someone to not come to book club for a great discussion if life got in the way!)
How to join the Happy Simple Mom Book Club:
1. Join the Happy Simple Mom Book Club Facebook group.
Facebook is NOT required to read any of these books. Read away, my friend! However, I’ve always found it fun to discuss new books with other people, and Facebook provides the perfect platform for discussing books without sticking to a strict schedule or having to go anywhere.
For years, I tried to start an in-person book club. While I am part of one now, there were many years where I was itching to share a book with someone and couldn’t find anyone else to participate. If you find yourself in the same boat, this Facebook group may be just the thing you are looking for by participating in this online book club!
2. Sign up for the Happy Simple Mom Book Club email newsletter.
No need to have to keep checking back here for the next book. Sign up for the Happy Simple Mom Book Club newsletter, and I’ll send you reminders each month for the book we are reading. I’ll likely add in some fun extras along the way!
3. Get the books for the Happy Simple Mom Book Club, the best book club picks 2024.
Whether you check them out from the library or want to own the book new, go find these Happy Simple Mom Book Club Picks 2024 and join us for a discussion. Can’t wait to read this along with you!
Here are the 2024 Happy Simple Mom Book Club Picks:
I’m so excited to announce this as the first-ever Happy Simple Mom Book Club!
I’ve wanted to be part of a book club for years. It’s always been a struggle to start an in-person one. While, I’m fortunate to be part of one now, for years I would have loved to have an online book club to hold me over with wonderful book discussions.
I’m reading these books along with you, so I’ll be popping in for the discussions as well.
This year’s picks were admittedly based on my actual bookshelf. 🙂 I LOVE to collect good books, but I collect them too fast to read them all. I’ve committed to reading these this year. I can’t wait to discuss them with you!
January 2024 Pick: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
This book sat on my shelf for the past several years, begging to be read. I watched the movie, years ago, when it first came out, and I found it touching, hilarious, and a real treat. The book is no different. It’s an easy read, keeping you turning the pages. I figured it’s a great way to start off the new year!

Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 544 pages
Audio Length: 18 hours and 6 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who’s always taken orders quietly, but lately she’s unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She’s full of ambition, but without a husband, she’s considered a failure.
Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town.
Check out The Help Book Club Discussion Questions
February 2024 Pick: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Length: 295 pages
Audio Length: 7 hours and 32 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.
Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her as a candidate for The Wife Project (even if she is “quite intelligent for a barmaid”). But Don is intrigued by Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie―and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you.
Arrestingly endearing and entirely unconventional, Graeme Simsion’s distinctive debut “navigates the choppy waters of adult relationships, both romantic and platonic, with a fresh take (USA TODAY). “Filled with humor and plenty of heart, The Rosie Project is a delightful reminder that all of us, no matter how we’re wired, just want to fit in” (Chicago Tribune).
Check out The Rosie Project Book Club Discussion Questions
March 2024 Pick: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Length: 336 pages
Audio Length: 10 hours and 58 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.
UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?
Check out The Girl on the Train Book Club Discussion Questions
April 2024 Pick: The Nazi Officer’s Wife by Edith Hahn Beer with Susan Dworkin

Genre: Historical Memoir
Length: 352 pages
Audio Length: 8 hours and 15 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a slave labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman and went underground. With the help of a Christian friend, she emerged in Munich as Grete Denner. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite Edith’s protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity a secret.
In wrenching detail, Edith recalls a life of constant, almost paralyzing fear. She tells how German officials casually questioned the lineage of her parents; how during childbirth she refused all painkillers, afraid that in an altered state of mind she might reveal something of her past; and how, after her husband was captured by the Soviets, she was bombed out of her house and had to hide while drunken Russian soldiers raped women on the street.
Despite the risk it posed to her life, Edith created a remarkable record of survival. She saved every document, as well as photographs she took inside labor camps. Now part of the permanent collection at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., these hundreds of documents, several of which are included in this volume, form the fabric of a gripping new chapter in the history of the Holocaust—complex, troubling, and ultimately triumphant.
Check out The Nazi Officer’s Wife Book Club Discussion Questions
May 2024 Pick: The Women by Kristin Hannah (pre-order: release date February 6, 2024)
OK, so every year I like to treat myself to ONE brand new book. Kristin Hannah is my favorite, all-time author. While her stories can be hard, the resilience of the women she creates is nothing short of incredible and inspiring. I can’t wait to read her new book!

Genre: Historical Fiction; Coming of Age Fiction; Women’s Fiction
Length: 480 pages
Audio Length: 14 hours and 57 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.
As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.
But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.
The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.
—-
If you don’t want to purchase her new book or if you can’t get it in a timely manner from the library, I highly recommend these other Kristin Hannah books:
- The Nightingale
- The Great Alone
- Winter Garden
Check out The Women Book Club Discussion Questions
June 2024 Pick: The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe

Genre: Family Life Fiction
Length: 480 pages
Audio Length: 14 hours and 16 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
Known for her moving characters and emotional honesty, Mary Alice Monroe brings readers a beautifully rendered story that explores the fragile yet enduring bond between mothers and daughters.
Caretta Rutledge thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind. But an unusual request from her mother — coming just as her own life is spinning out of control — has Cara heading back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers. Before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide “turtle lady” and renews old acquaintances with her mother that she will earn life’s most precious lessons — true love involves sacrifice, family is forever and the mistakes of the past can be forgiven.
Check out The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe Book Club Discussion Questions
July 2024 Pick: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
I wanted the Happy Simple Mom Book Club to include at least one children’s read-aloud book each year. There’s something magical that happens when you read aloud to children, so include them in this month’s read! If you don’t have any children to read to, don’t skip out on this book. Young adult fiction often makes for a great read!

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction
Length: 320 pages
Audio Length: 7 hours and 10 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.
August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Beginning from Auggie’s point of view and expanding to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others, the perspectives converge to form a portrait of one community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance. In a world where bullying among young people is an epidemic, this is a refreshing new narrative full of heart and hope.
R.J. Palacio has called her debut novel “a meditation on kindness” —indeed, every reader will come away with a greater appreciation for the simple courage of friendship. Auggie is a hero to root for, a diamond in the rough who proves that you can’t blend in when you were born to stand out.
August 2024 Pick: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
I really like reading non-fiction, but I don’t usually read memoirs. This book has been sitting on my shelf for a while, and I’ve heard really good things about it.

Genre: Memoir
Length: 368 pages
Audio Length: 12 hours and 10 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate until she was nine years old.
At sixteen, to escape her father’s radicalism and a violent older brother, Tara left home. What followed was a struggle for self-invention, a journey that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
September 2024 Pick: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Genre: Family Life Fiction; Asian American Fiction
Length: 368 pages
Audio Length: 11 hours and 27 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.
Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood—and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
October 2024 Pick: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
I watched this show after I had ACL surgery, and I really enjoyed it! A few years have passed, so now I’m ready to read the book after reading and enjoying “What Alice Forgot” by the same author.

Genre: Family Life Fiction; Suspense; Women’s Fiction
Length: 512 pages
Audio Length: 15 hours and 55 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
A murder…A tragic accident…Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.
Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.
Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.
November 2024 Pick: The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal

Genre: Family Life Fiction
Length: 400 pages
Audio Length: 11 hours and 13 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely to Helen, his younger daughter. Despite baking award-winning pies at the local nursing home, her older sister, Edith, struggles to make what most people would call a living. So she can’t help wondering what her life would have been like with even a portion of the farm money her sister kept for herself.
With the proceeds from the farm, Helen builds one of the most successful light breweries in the country, and makes their company motto ubiquitous: “Drink lots. It’s Blotz.” Where Edith has a heart as big as Minnesota, Helen’s is as rigid as a steel keg. Yet one day, Helen will find she needs some help herself, and she could find a potential savior close to home. . . if it’s not too late.
Meanwhile, Edith’s granddaughter, Diana, grows up knowing that the real world requires a tougher constitution than her grandmother possesses. She earns a shot at learning the IPA business from the ground up–will that change their fortunes forever, and perhaps reunite her splintered family?
Here we meet a cast of lovable, funny, quintessentially American characters eager to make their mark in a world that’s often stacked against them. In this deeply affecting family saga, resolution can take generations, but when it finally comes, we’re surprised, moved, and delighted.
December 2024 Pick: In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
OK, I love, love, love any book about time travel. I realize it’s not everyone’s jam, but this one has the earmarks of a good book for everyone!

Genre: Humorous Fiction; Romantic Comedy: Time Travel
Length: 336 pages
Audio Length: 7 hours and 40 minutes
Publisher’s Description:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.
But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will spend at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.
The next thing she knows, tires screech, metal collides, and everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.
“Take one lovably flawed heroine, add a doting boy-next-door hero, and sprinkle in a cozy family holiday, and you have the recipe for a delicious time-looping romantic comedy” (Library Journal, starred review) that will make you believe in the power of wishes and the magic of the holidays.
Shop The Happy Simple Mom Bookclub Picks for 2024
Need help finding the books? Check out my storefront where you can find all the best book club picks for 2024 in one location!
What are your favorite book club picks? Join us in 2024 (or any other year), and let’s discuss these great books.
How convenient that I happen to have this book already at home. I just watched the movie AGAIN recently as it is one of those that I can watch over and over and never tire of it! Now I’m going to read the book AGAIN! Thanks for starting this book club, I am also one who like to collect books l, but can’t keep up with all the reading. Now I’ll make the time!
Greetings!
Is there a process to submit children’s books for your group? My new book “Always Be Santa: True Stories From The Guy In The Big Red Suit Vol. 1” was released on Amazon Publishing last month. I’d love for your group to read it. I can send a digital copy to a designated team member to review it and see if it’s a good fit for you.
Written with humor and lots of heart, ALWAYS BE SANTA: TRUE STORIES FROM THE GUY IN THE BIG RED SUIT VOL.1 will be enjoyed by both children and adults. A unique feature in this book will be that the stories are presented so that families can have an advent type/Countdown to Christmas experience each night leading up to Christmas Day. Each story begins with a quote that reflects the virtue that can be taken from that particular day. The reader will enjoy, and relate to, the different things that children – and adults – will say to Santa. Anywhere from asking for toys, wanting to know how old Santa is, telling on their siblings…or their parents, to asking him “life questions” The stories are funny, heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking as Santa navigates the challenge of saying just the right thing for the right request. My hope is that these stories will prompt some family discussions about what happens in each story, and also encourage kids and adults to “Always Be Santa” Not just at Christmas time – but also all year long. Thank you for your consideration.
Best Regards,
Phil Pierce