Thursday Thoughts: Mosquitoland Book Club at the Library

Last month was my very first YA book club at the library, and it was amazing and wonderful. My teens and I had an hour and a half long discussion about The Raven Boys, and at the end of it, they told me they wanted me to pick out the next read. Well, I’m sure you guys know by now how much I love David Arnold’s debut novel, Mosquitoland, right? If not, just check out my 10/10 review of it, and/or check out my Twitter page because I talk about it like 3 times a week at least/my Twitter header image is my copy of the book. My teens decided they wanted to go with Mosquitoland aka I practically word-vomited my love of it and they liked that. 🙂 Either way, we read Mosquitoland for our September book club, and then discussed it this past Monday.

Last month I decided to ask them to describe each of the characters and the book overall in one word at the end of the discussion and they seemed to enjoy that, so we did it again, and here are the words they used for Mosquitoland.

MIM

Sassy // Witty // Spirit-animal // Adventurous // Relatable // Quirky // Smart // Well-done

BECK

Ahhhhh // Heart-Eyes emoji // Responsible // Moral clock // Compassionate // Nice // Charismatic

WALT

Awwwww // Innocent // Adorable // Huggable // Loveable // Wonderful

ARLENE

She smells like cookies // Pizzazz // Warm // #oldpersongoals // Inviting

KATHY (Potential spoilers)

Redeemed // Underestimated

SPOILERS – PONCHO MAN

Creepy // Pedo // Bigot // UGH // *insert bad words here* // Overgrown primate

MOSQUITOLAND

*Sighs contentedly* // Sassy // Indescribable // Realistic // Beautiful // We can’t just pick one word

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I’m really happy that 1. all of them loved the book (like, seriously, it was just an hour and half love fest), and 2. we actually had three new members!

So David, being the wonderful human he is, signed some bookmarks for my teens when I met him at the Decatur Book Festival last month, and my teens were SO EXCITED when I handed them out. Thank you again, David, for being so generous – and also answering some last minute questions via Twitter! My teens are as in love with the book as I am, and they are equally as enamored with you. I was somehow able to tone down my word-vomit love to lead a thoughtful, interesting, love-filled discussion for over an hour with a group of 8 teens about Mim, family, Mississippi, psychosis/medication/etc, romance, road trips, flaws, and so much more, and I’m pretty dang happy about it. All of the teens in the book club – except the one boy who had to leave early for Boy Scouts – are teenage girls, and we talked about how well-done Mim is and how they could relate to her so much because her voice is just like theirs. That, to me, is the mark of an amazing YA book.

Check out this picture of my teens with their bookmarks, my coworker (the super tall one) who I convinced to read the book and she also loved it, and me, looking happy af.

Next month’s read is I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson!