Book Of The Month: The Perfect Book Club For College Students

By Victoria Robertson on September 29, 2016

College is one of the most empowering, influential and overall amazing experiences you’re ever going to have in your life. You’ll meet friends that you’ll have for a lifetime, learn things that will propel you forward throughout your career and become enriched in campus culture that will open you up to new possibilities down the road.

However, with all of this going on, and the mounds of term papers, exams and reading assignments, it’s hard to make time for yourself to just sit in solitude on occasion and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Granted, this is hard to come by in part because of the hustle and bustle of the college campus, but it’s also because we as students aren’t giving ourselves that essential, “me time.”

A new book club is changing this, and college students need to hop on board.

The club is called Book of the Month, and it’s providing readers with access to lesser-known texts that maybe college students wouldn’t have come across otherwise.

It is a monthly club, and it’s catered to your specific reading style. So how exactly does it work? And how exactly is this the best book club for a college student to join?

Be patient my friends: I’ll tell you.

For one thing, you can be as committed or uncommitted as possible. The club comes with three different memberships — a one month, a three month and a 12 month membership plan — running at $16.99, $14.99 and $11.99 respectively. (This would total to $16.99, $44.97 and $143.88 respectively, for those of you that are as mathematically challenged as I am).

So how does it work?

First, you join the club (by first picking out your membership length). When joining, you take a short quiz to figure out what your reading habits are. For instance, the quiz asks what type of books you’re most likely to read (Mystery/Thriller, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, History, Memoir, Travel/Adventure or True Crime) as well as how many books you typically read in a month.

Then, once you’re signed up, you wait for the 1st of the month. On this day, a panel of judges (four literary professionals and a celebrity guest judge) each pick a book that they would like members to read for that month. This means there is a total of five books on the first of every month for you to choose from.

That quiz that you took while joining is used to help determine which book will be the best fit for you out of the five. However, you can pick whichever book you would like.

This book is free with your membership. You can pick up to three books, but the other two will cost $9.99 each.

Each judge writes a short review for you to read through and all you have to do is click on the texts that you would like for the month.

Once you’ve finalized your choices, Book of the Month will ship out your box to you, including up to three texts, and each month, the box includes some sort of extra goodie as well as personalized cards from the judge that chose your text.

Oh, and you always get a new BOTM bookmark for all of your reading needs!

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Book of the Month is also amazing because it consistently runs contests for free months of books, allows you to get a free book for every referral, and is very much interactive on social media so you are always in the loop.

The club feels like a family, and there are even online forums so you can discuss your book choice with others who chose the same text, like your own, personal virtual book club.

And if you don’t like any of the book choices for that month? You can skip! You can skip as many months as you want — which is also great for college students who want a 12 month membership but that may have random busy periods throughout the semester.

To give you a little snippet, the choices for this past month were Amy Schumer’s “The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo,” chosen by celebrity guest judge Andy Cohen; “Behold the Dreamers” by Imbolo Mbue, chosen by judge Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney; “The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena and chosen by judge Liberty Hardy; “All At Sea” by Decca Aitkenhead, chosen by judge Maris Kreizman; and  “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles and chosen by judge Leigh Haber.

Each month brings along with it new, amazing choices for avid readers, and even for those that are just looking to expand their reading horizons beyond the New York Times’ Best Sellers list.

Oh, and for those that are against the Kindle, you’ll be happy to know that each book is the hardcover version of the text, provided to BOTM members at a discounted price of $9.99 (which, I’ve looked, is cheaper that you’d even find them on Amazon).

So if you’re looking for a new way to get some reading in, join Book of the Month!

It’s the perfect supplement to the college experience!

You can join the club here.

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