Diving through a world war in The Divine Rivials to a fictional college setting in The Secret History, the FHC Book Club is exploring different stories and worlds together.
The book club meets every other Monday in room 105 right after school. Teacher Lisa Penninga is the advisor of the club and was happy to do so; she loves to read. To her, reading is a way to view different places and people through the stories on the pages.
“I love reading because even if I’m at home, I’m able to travel to different time periods, worlds, and places. It’s just a great opportunity to see a different perspective of the world than from my own brain and my mind,” Penninga said.
Penninga loves how the book club connects students all across the school, regardless of grade. With seniors leading it, it’s a great way for underclassmen to get familiar with some of the upperclassmen at FHC.
“It’s such a fun group of students. It’s small, but it’s impactful,” Penninga said. “Even if you haven’t read the book, it’s fun to hear what people like about books and what they have to say about it. [It’s nice] to be around people that actually wanted to read the book instead of in a class, where sometimes you’re surrounded by people that didn’t read it, didn’t love it, or didn’t have anything to say about it.”
Senior Mahta Poostizadeh, the co-founder of the book club, has been reading since she was a little kid and has always loved to read. Mahta and senior Addy Cousins started the FHC Book Club this school year. They wanted a place where people could come together to read and discuss non-school-related books.
“My friend [Addy] and I wanted a place where people could read and just expand their taste [with books], and we just love to read,” Mahta said.
Mahta describes the book club as a space where people can come read and discuss books that they choose, that aren’t assigned to them.
“For people who like to read, it’s a safe space where people come and have discussions, and people like to talk about their own books as well,” Mahta said. “We just want a space where everyone is nonjudgemental talking about books.”
It’s such a fun group of students. It’s small, but it’s impactful.
— Lisa Penninga
Even if you are an avid reader, the book club can expand your reading tastes.
So far, the book club has read two books, both coming from different genres. It is a great way to try out and read different books than what you are used to.
“It expands your reading tastes, it’s good to get out of your comfort zone because when reading The Secret History, it has such a small subplot and some of the people didn’t really want to read it because it doesn’t have a lot of romance,” Mahta said. “But we said it’ll take you out of your comfort zone. It’ll give you something new to try and expand your intellect.”
Junior Monia Abbas has grown up loving reading, it is one of her favorite hobbies; when she heard about the book club, she was excited to join. She loves sharing her thoughts on books and talking to people about them.
Monia loves how the book club allows her to veer away from what she is normally interested in reading and enjoys the differing opinions from other members of the book club when they discuss the book they are reading.
“It makes you step out of what you’re usually reading,” Monia said. “You also get to talk about them, which I actually found that I liked that the most because when we finished The Divine Rivals, we met and we all were talking about the ending and how some people liked it and some hated it. Some people are going to read the second book, some people aren’t. It was really interesting to see everyone’s points of view on the characters and the plots.”
She also enjoys how she is able to discuss the books, and it’s not a book that was assigned, but a book that they chose and wanted to read. Monia loves discussing her opinions on the books she reads and is really glad to be a part of the club, she also enjoys the pacing.
“It’s not like school reading, where you have to read a certain amount of chapters before the next meeting,” Monia said. “We have two weeks to read as much as we want or as little as we want and when we meet together, whoever’s read the least, that’s where we talk about it.”
Monia has a passion for reading books, and Penninga encourages all students, regardless if they love reading or not, to read.
“I think reading helps everyone’s mental health,” Penninga said. “If you read before you go to sleep, you’re supposed to sleep better. I just think it’s a great way to get outside of your problems and issues. I’m an overthinker, so it’s nice that it makes me stop overthinking by going and reading a book. Reading helps me just escape from the hardships of every day, and get a better perspective of the world.”
