15 Uplifting Book Club Books To Make You Smile

When Bernadine catches her husband cheating on her with his secretary, she takes measures to protect herself…and ends up with more money than she knows what to do with. Searching for a purpose, she buys Henry Adams, Kansas, one of the last towns founded by newly freed people after the Civil War, and decides to invest in the community in desperate need of some money and a second chance.

Lillian is adrift—she’s in her late 20s and living with her mom, without any career prospects. When an old high school friend writes to Lillian and asks her to come help her take care of her stepkids, Lillian agrees—what else does she have going on? But there’s a catch—when agitated, the kids catch on fire. Weirdly, this doesn’t deter Lillian, who goes on to forge a life-changing friendship with two scared kids who’ve never had anyone to count on. This is an oddball but uplifting book.

Alys Binat is a teacher, and along with her older sister, her family’s sole source of income after a scandal left them exiled to a small village. She has no interest in marrying and worries about her students who give up learning for weddings, but when she and her family are invited to the wedding of the year and she encounters Mr. Darsee, her views of marriage are challenged. This is a clever and meta retelling of Pride & Prejudice that will make you laugh and make you think.

When Cheryl was in her early 20s, she went through a painful divorce and lost her mother to cancer. Devastated, lost, and full of self-loathing, she knew she needed to make a change in her life. So she decided to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, alone. This memoir is about her life-changing journey, and also a memorial to her mother and the strength that she instilled in Cheryl to keep moving forward.

Nikki is a twentysomething in need of a job after her father’s unexpected death. She agrees to teach a creative writing class at her Punjabi community center, but it disappointed when her only students turn out to be widows hoping to learn English. With a little creativity, Nikki soon has them learning by helping them write erotic stories—and builds connection along the way. But when that’s threatened by the community’s moral police, Nikki learns about the power that comes with telling your own story and speaking the truth.

Written by the co-writer of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is an uplifting novel about two young women in 1938 West Virginia. One is Layla, a privileged woman who has been cut off and told to get a job, so she arrives in a small town on a New Deal gig to write the town’s history. Willa is 12, and not exactly pleased about Layla boarding with her family, but  her presence allows her to pull back the veil on some family secrets.

Emoni is a teen mom who is fiercely devoted to caring for her baby daughter, and doesn’t want to put undue stress on her abuela. She knows that she should use her senior year to figure out a sensible, stable career—but she’s drawn to cooking. And when a chance to learn how to cook from a real chef presents itself, Emoni has to decide if she’s going to take a chance on her dreams or play it safe.