In book club, this month, we are reading Strangers by Belle Burden. Strangers is a marriage memoir, but not the happily ever after of marriage the we like to imagine. It’s the story of a marriage ending in divorce.

Belle’s book, Strangers, gives you a deep look into the raw emotional experience of divorce. One that often makes us uncomfortable. The more knowledge that we can gain about life, the more empathy and understanding we will have in our relation to the world.

Sunburn, is a true coming of age story of learning how to embrace who you are. It’s more complicated though, as the character Lucy is navigating discovering her sexuality and realizing her queer identity in rural 1990s Ireland. Not only, is she a teenager, trying to figure out what this all means, but she is discovering that it is not what everyone expected her to be. She questions, is it better to deny who you are or go against the grain and be who you are?

In Sunburn’s love story, you can’t help, but think about how crazy love makes us. All the things we think about when we are in love, how it clouds our mind and opens our heart. The intensity and consuming power of love. You hear it through a young adult’s perspective, but yet it’s so relatable to any intense love that you’ve ever experienced.

For when you’ve outgrown your life, but don’t know what comes next yet.

It's about how honest you can get with yourself and your partner.

The start of book club.