The Book of the Month December 2021 selections are here! Decide which of the five books you want to add to your subscription box.
Book of the Month is my favorite subscription box. Every month, I choose between their five book selections, and voila! A blue box arrives at my door carrying one (or two or three) new books for me to read.
Every month, I highlight the five books chosen and let you know my thoughts on the chosen titles.
Even if you don’t have a Book of the Month subscription (yet), I think you’ll find value in looking at a curated list of new releases.
Take a look at the five books this month:
- Politics, Family and Hurricane Maria
- Reclusive Community Mystery
- Serial Killer Strikes Again
- Memoir of Having an Incarcerated Father
- Twins Switch Places Romance
Keep scrolling to see all the details about the Book of the Month December 2021 selections and to find out which one I’m adding to my subscription box.
What is Book of the Month?
Book of the Month is a monthly subscription book service highly popular among the book community. Trust me, once you try it, you’ll be hooked.
How it Works
Each month, a panel of judges chooses five books for you to choose from. The Book of the Month selections cover different genres and are always special edition hardcovers. Often, the chosen books haven’t been published yet, so you get to be one of the first people to read them.
At the beginning of the month, you choose one book to add to your box and shortly thereafter the little blue box arrives at your door. If you aren’t loving any of the selected books, you just skip that month and your credits will just roll over to the next month. Or, after your third box, you can choose from five member favorite books for your month’s selection instead.
On the other hand, if you want more than one book, once you’ve chosen your initial book, you can add-on up to two additional books at a discounted rate. These add-ons can be from the current month’s selection, be favorites from previous months, or be new releases specially included in the add-on catalog.
Pricing
Book of the Month runs two different pricing plans. On the monthly plan, you get one credit a month for $15. If you are willing to pay upfront, the yearly plan gives you 12 credits for $150, which averages out to $12.50 a book. For a hardcover new release, both prices are a steal.
Even better, when you include additional books into your box, they are only $10 each!
Book of the Month also offers 3, 6, and 9-month gift cards if you are considering purchasing it as a gift.
For new subscribers, Book of the Month’s homepage almost always has a special offer to get your first book for $10. But I can do you one better. If you are interested in joining, you can use this Book of the Month Club referral link to get your first book for $5 right now!
Bonus Features
But wait, there’s more. Once you’ve chosen your 12th book from Book of the Month, you join the BFF club and get a special Book of the Month tote.
After that, you’ll get a free add-on every year for your birthday month. Plus, when the end of the year rolls around, you get one of the top 5 Book of the Month selections from the year for free. That’s an additional two books each year for no additional cost.
What are you waiting for? Join Book of the Month and get your first book at a discounted price!
December 2021 Book of the Month Selections
Olga Dies Dreaming
Xochitl Gonzalez
In New York, Olga Acevedo is the go-to wedding planner for Manhattan’s rich, helped by the popularity of her brother Prieto, a Congressman in a gentrifying Latinx community. Raised by their grandmother after their mother abandoned them to join a radical militant group, they are forced to deal with family secrets when their mother returns just as Hurricane Maria approaches the city.
A History of Wild Places
Shea Ernshaw
When a popular dark children’s author goes missing, Travis Wren is hired to find her, only to disappear himself. Years later, Theo finds Travis’s truck abandoned outside Pastoral, the reclusive community that has vanished from the modern world to which he belongs. As Travis investigates, the fear of outsiders causes cracks in the seemingly perfect community in this new magical realism novel.
A Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham
When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls disappeared from her small Louisiana town and her father was convicted as a serial killer. As her wedding approaches, Chloe fears the past is repeating when teen girls start vanishing. Is she imagining the parallels to her past or is the past truly coming back to haunt her?
Somebody’s Daughter
Ashley C. Ford
A coming-of-age memoir about growing up a Black girl with an incarcerated father and the path to truly understand and overcome our origins. While Ashley idolized her father she barely knew, her life was shaped by her quick-tempered and emotionally detached mother. As she ages, she eventually learns why her father is in prison and must reconcile her own identity with her family’s past.
The Holiday Swap
Maggie Knox
When Charlie, a celebrity chef with a hit reality baking show, loses her ability to taste and smell, she hatches a plan to swap places with her twin sister to finish out the season. Cass could use a break from her small mountain bakery and from her ex who won’t accept they are through. Will a holiday swap be a recipe for disaster or just what they need to find love?
Not Feeling the December Books?
Sometimes, it happens. If none of the five December 2021 Book of the Month selections are calling your name, don’t despair. After your third box, you now have another option!
Previously, if you didn’t love the five choices, you would have to skip the whole month. Now, you can choose a member fave for your monthly box and then add-on up to two more books if you choose.
Member Faves:
December’s New Add-Ons
Recently, Book of the Month has started including a few extra releases on top of their five monthly selections. Once you have picked your main selection, you can choose to add-on one of these new books (or any past release) to your box.
December’s New Books:
My December Picks
December is always my biggest (and cheapest) box of the month thanks to my free birthday credit and the free Book of the Year selection. Cheers to BFF status!
My free Book of the Year finalist was the easiest book to pick this month, since I had already read the other four. Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds was the winner of the year, but I already own a copy so I’m going to try Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby. President Obama had it on his reading list this year, so I have high hopes.
For my December box, I went with Stacy Willingham’s thriller, A Flicker in the Dark, which I had already chosen to highlight for my January 2022 releases. I’m a sucker for a good thriller, and a second round of murders surrounding the same girl sounds interesting.
To fill out my box, I happened to choose two books about Asian-Americans that had been sitting on my to-read list. Just for fun, I nabbed a copy of Stacey Lee’s The Downstairs Girl, a young adult historical fiction soap – Downton Abbey meets Gossip Girl – which was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick.
I’m also going to try Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee (the author of Pachinko), an extremely long contemporary story about a daughter of Korean Immigrants trying to find a place for herself among privileged and wealthy Manhattanites.
Which of the Book of the Month December 2021 Selections Are You Going to Pick?
What books can you not wait to get your hands on this month? Or are you skipping this month’s selections? As always, let me know in the comments!
More New Book Releases:
Ann says
I will probably go with Flicker in the Dark & Razorblade Tears as my BOTY nominee.
Looks like Flicker in the Dark has already been chosen to become a tv series. Not sure of all the details, but they involve Emma Stone.
I have mixed feeling about Razorblade Tears. Some rave about it, others mention poor editing. It is certainly not my usual, but that is one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about BOTM. It helps me step outside my box.
Waiting to see what Jenna is picking.
Edyta says
I absolutely loved Razorblade Tears. It is waaay more violent and brutal than I would normally read and the language is tough to accept (some really racist stuff, but fits with the characters sooooo the right kind of uncomfortable). Flicker in the dark sounds like the pick for me this month
Rachael says
I’m excited to read Razorblade Tears. It’s not something I would normally pick, but I keep hearing great things, so I’m glad it was one of the Book of the Year finalists.