In the 2022 school year, Ellie Harrington, Ashley Subach, and Madison Mitchell established the Women’s Literature Book Club at South Brunswick High School. We wanted to help enrich the literary community at our school, in a way that focused on our direct vision and fostered in-depth conversations.

Our book club reads books solely written by female authors, although it is not limited to just female participants.  We have roughly 25 members and meet once a month to discuss our thoughts on the book of the month. With the world in such chaos, we want to become more educated on the topics that are in circulation and form our own opinions.

The books we intend to read feature topics such as mental health, women’s rights, immigration, and much more. Our club aims to both have mature conversations from a literary perspective, as well as to help expand the literary community around us, through the implementation of volunteer efforts. We plan to hold a book drive in November to benefit children in our area. We will also be building a free library for the community at some point this year! 

Month of September Book Review:

Our September novel was Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, which highlights the struggles of those with mental disorders and life in a 1960s mental hospital. It portrays the struggle of an adolescent girl to understand her own mental illness and offers insight into the impact of others on her view of herself. We found this novel to be incredibly interesting, as the topic of mental institutions is somewhat taboo and not well-discussed.

Susanna, the main character, is intriguing to the reader because she is able to talk about dark topics with sarcastic and witty humor. In addition, numerous club members took Advanced Placement Psychology this past school year. This prior knowledge made the psychiatric jargon easy to navigate and made the novel even more enjoyable. 

Girl Interrupted can be checked out from the Brunswick County Library and can be requested from their online catalog.