Back before the COVID-19 pandemic, back before everything in the world felt wrong and weird, Barnes and Novel started their second “Book Club” collection.
The Barnes and Noble Book Club had be going for about a year at this point, focusing on adult books. While I didn’t take part in any way (I was still in the “I still only read YA books, away this those adult books, they are all full of horror or sex and I’m just not comfortable reading that, though I don’t judge those books or those who read them” mindset), I knew about it and kept an eye out for them.
The picks were of all different genres. The only thing that seemed to be a constant is that each choice was usually a debut author or an author changing genre or type. The books were usually well received as well.
Then in June of 2019, Barnes and Noble announced that they were started a second book club, this one focused on the Young Adult Genre. Again, it got off to a great start. The picks were wild and diverse, some of which that have gone on to be loved and beloved, some have been optioned for TV or film (with one off the top of my head having already released a season, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, March 2020’s pick.
I myself discovered my local B&N was hosting the YA book club just after the second pick, We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal. I ended up reading the third pick and made it a point to go, even though travelling to that B&N on a Tuesday night was somewhat difficult with my job at the time. August 2019, I ended up reading Wilder Girls by Rory Power and attended my first meeting.
Surprisingly, it went well! I wasn’t sure how I would do with being in a book club for the first time (this was long before the book clubs I joined in 2023/2024). In fact, I kept attending, reading all the books and enjoying most of them.
And then COVID.
We had a socially distanced meeting in March 2020 for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, with the hopes to meet again in person the next month. This didn’t happen. The in-person meetings were cancelled for the foreseeable future. Barnes and Noble took everything online, doing mediated interviews with the authors, where readers could ask questions directly.
Post-pandemic, the clubs didn’t return immediately. Most of the stores didn’t start up, and those that did only held the Adult Book Club. The YA Book Club was usually ignored.
The books were still being picked. They still have somewhat of a place of respect at the stores and on the website… but they weren’t be promoted. December did not get a pick for every year of the YA Book Club’s running life, beyond 2019.
In March of 2025, Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven was released. It had a decent reception. It sold well, from what I can see.
April 2025, there wasn’t a pick. May? Nothing. By June, it was clear that the Barnes and Noble YA Book Club had been quietly cancelled. From what I found on Reddit, for booksellers at B&N, this wasn’t much of a surprise.
I enjoyed the collection. I obviously do, I have all 66 selections on my bookshelves. I just wasn’t surprised to see it go. It was getting harder and harder to find the choices in store (where I preferred to buy them).
It’s been nine months since that last book was picked. I still think about it, still have my sticky notes out so I can mark the next book, still have enough space on my shelf for probably three more pics. But that said, I’m not surprised anymore. I’ve moved on a bit. While I’m not reading the Barnes and Noble Book Club picks, I am reading books outside my comfort zone, thanks to my book clubs now.
I just… miss it. Nostalgia is a weird thing.
Happy reading!
