The Bachelor Book Club: 6 Reads for Your Most Dramatic TBR List Yet

March 6 2020
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Bachelor fans! There’s been a lot of new content coming our way. There’s the Bachelor-themed singing show, Listen to Your Heart, plus what’s this about a casting call for seniors? If you’re like me and slightly fearful that you’ll just have to quit normal life and become a full-time fan, think about starting your own Bachelor Book Club. It’ll allow you to stay on brand, as well as fit in some time for actual human interaction and an intellectual consumption of words—closed captions don’t count!

To ease into your newly formed Bachelor Book Club, I recommend starting your reading/discussing during your watch parties for the show. You won’t miss those muted commercial breaks, those petty fights for camera time (what a waste of space), and those never-ending recaps. Plus, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to read during those other days of the week when you’re miserably counting down the hours till Monday night. To help keep you and your pals entertained between dramatic reveals, here are some books to launch your Bachelor Book Club.

For a more condensed visual version of recommendations, check out our video!

This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.

The First Time
by Colton Underwood

Chris Harrison was right for once: Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor may just have been the most dramatic yet. That fence jump, that hopeless nighttime wander through the Portugal countryside, and Chris’s panicked face all made for some epic reality TV. In Colton’s new memoir The First Time, publishing March 31, learn how, not too long ago, this macho fence-slaying beast was just a socially awkward kid crushing it on the football field, but fumbling in his search for love. There’s tons of juicy behind-the-scenes details in his story that you need to read to have the complete Bachelor Knowledge Set. Plus, did you know he was a virgin!?!

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The First Time
Colton Underwood

From former football player and star of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette comes a fascinating and eye-opening behind-the-scenes look at his drama-filled season on the hit reality show.

Before Colton Underwood captured the hearts of millions on The Bachelor, he was a goofy, socially awkward, overweight adolescent who succeeded on the football field while struggling with personal insecurities off it. An All American gridiron hero, he was also a complex, sometimes confused, soft-hearted romantic wondering how these contradictions fit together. Old-fashioned and out of step with the swipe right dating culture of today, he was saving the most intimate part of life for the love of his life. If only he could find her…

Now, in The First Time, Colton opens up about how he came to find himself and true love at the same time via the Bachelor franchise. Unencumbered by cameras and commercial breaks, he delivers a surprisingly raw, endearing, and seriously juicy account of his journey through The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, and The Bachelor, along with what has happened with him and Cassie Randolph since his season wrapped. He opens up about being dumped by Becca, his secret dalliance with Tia, what it was like to be the world’s most famous virgin, his behind-the-scenes conflicts with production, and how his on-camera responsibilities as the Bachelor nearly destroyed him after he knew he had already fallen in love with Cassie.

A memoir for Bachelor Nation and anyone who believes in the magic of love, The First Time carries a simple but powerful message: It’s okay to laugh and cry and occasionally jump over a fence, if it means coming one step closer to the right person.

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MENTIONED IN:

The Bachelor Book Club: 6 Reads for Your Most Dramatic TBR List Yet

By Emily Lewis | March 6, 2020

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The Last Black Unicorn
by Tiffany Haddish

Is it any surprise that Tiffany Haddish watches The Bachelor and loves Pilot Pete? They both have experience in the airline industry and each can’t help but stir up trouble. I mean, Peter…was it really necessary to throw everybody under the bus this season? Tiffany’s memoir The Last Black Unicorn includes hilarious revenge plots and raunchy boy-crazy descriptions that will have your Bachelor crew laughing through those miserable commercial breaks. Tiffany credits humor as helping her through tough times growing up, so you’ll also find heartbreakingly raw and inspiring stories from this breakout comedian.

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The Last Black Unicorn
Tiffany Haddish

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“An inspiring story that manages to be painful, honest, shocking, bawdy and hilarious.” —The New York Times Book Review

From stand-up comedian, actress, and breakout star of Girls Trip, Tiffany Haddish, comes The Last Black Unicorn, a sidesplitting, hysterical, edgy, and unflinching collection of (extremely) personal essays, as fearless as the author herself.

Growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, Tiffany learned to survive by making people laugh. If she could do that, then her classmates would let her copy their homework, the other foster kids she lived with wouldn’t beat her up, and she might even get a boyfriend. Or at least she could make enough money—as the paid school mascot and in-demand Bar Mitzvah hype woman—to get her hair and nails done, so then she might get a boyfriend.

None of that worked (and she’s still single), but it allowed Tiffany to imagine a place for herself where she could do something she loved for a living: comedy.

Tiffany can’t avoid being funny—it’s just who she is, whether she’s plotting shocking, jaw-dropping revenge on an ex-boyfriend or learning how to handle her newfound fame despite still having a broke person’s mind-set. Finally poised to become a household name, she recounts with heart and humor how she came from nothing and nowhere to achieve her dreams by owning, sharing, and using her pain to heal others.

By turns hilarious, filthy, and brutally honest, The Last Black Unicorn shows the world who Tiffany Haddish really is—humble, grateful, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. And now, she’s ready to inspire others through the power of laughter.

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In Five Years
by Rebecca Serle

These Bachelor contestants sure do like to imagine their futures—I mean, I guess they have to since they’re confronted with being ready for an engagement almost every other day. But what if a Bachelorette suddenly woke up five years in the future with her decision already shown to her? In Rebecca Serle’s ingenious love story, In Five Years, that’s just what happens to Manhattanite lawyer Dannie Cohan. When she wakes up to find herself five years in the future and engaged to a man who is very much not her current-day fiancé, she understandably freaks out. But after only an hour, her timeline returns to normal and she forgets all about the strange occurrence—until she sees that same man again in real life. Fair warning: this book is more sad than you’d expect, so prepare to cry and discuss over sips of wine.

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In Five Years
Rebecca Serle

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Good Morning America, FabFitFun, and Marie Claire Book Club Pick

In Five Years is as clever as it is moving, the rare read-in-one-sitting novel you won’t forget.” —Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists

Perfect for fans of Me Before You and One Day—a striking, powerful, and moving love story following an ambitious lawyer who experiences an astonishing vision that could change her life forever.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers.

She is nothing like her lifelong best friend—the wild, whimsical, believes-in-fate Bella. Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriend’s marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content.

But when she awakens, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. Dannie spends one hour exactly five years in the future before she wakes again in her own home on the brink of midnight—but it is one hour she cannot shake. In Five Years is an unforgettable love story, but it is not the one you’re expecting.

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The Truth About Men
by DeVon Franklin

Okay, hear me out. I know some of you may say, “NO WAY to the José.” And I know, I know,  Bachelor Book Club should be all about the ladies, but, especially after Pilot Pete, I do think it’d be helpful to know just what exactly goes on in those boys’ minds. Now, next time that boy gives his rose to the girl who is there for insta fame only, just whip out your copy of DeVon Franklin’s The Truth About Men, and perhaps you’ll find the answers to what in the world is happening. Sidenote—this may help you out with your brackets too.

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The Truth About Men
DeVon Franklin

The New York Times bestselling author of The Wait and “spiritual teacher for our times” (Oprah Winfrey) frankly and openly explores why men behave the way they do and what everyone—men and women alike—need to know about it.

We hear it all the time. Men cheat. Men love power. Men love sex. Men are greedy. Men are dogs. But is this really the truth about men?

In this groundbreaking book, DeVon Franklin dishes the real truth by making the compelling case that men aren’t dogs but all men share the same struggle. He provides the manual for how men can change, both on a personal and a societal level by providing practical solutions for helping men learn how to resist temptation, how to practice self-control, and how to love.

But The Truth About Men isn’t just for men. DeVon tells female readers everything they need to know about men. He offers women a real-time understanding of how men’s struggles affect them, insights that can help them navigate their relationships with men and information on how to heal from the damage that some misbehaving men may have inflicted.

This book is a raw, informative, and accessible look at an issue that threatens to tear our society apart yet it offers a positive way forward for men and women alike.

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From Scratch
by Tembi Locke

Ah, those romantic ski trips in Switzerland, those windmill adventures in Greece, those strolls through downtown Cleveland, plus, oh hey, a derby race.... We crave those Bachelor destination dates, wherever they may be. Satisfy your wanderlust with this beautiful memoir set in Sicily. Author Tembi Locke interweaves loving memories of her late husband, Saro—who she met in Florence while studying abroad—with the heartbreaking process of taking care of their young daughter alone after his death. While grieving, she spends three summers going back to his small farming town in Sicily, to help with the devastating loss, and to bond with Saro’s estranged Sicilian family, who never approved of their interracial marriage. Be prepared to have some pasta on hand as you read and discuss this moving story of love and loss.

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From Scratch
Tembi Locke

This Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller is “a captivating story of love lost and found” (Kirkus Reviews) set in the lush Sicilian countryside, where one woman discovers the healing powers of food, family, and unexpected grace in her darkest hours.

It was love at first sight when actress Tembi met professional chef, Saro, on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro’s traditional Sicilian family did not approve of his marrying a black American woman. However, the couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forged on. They built a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships, and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopted at birth. Eventually, they reconciled with Saro’s family just as he faced a formidable cancer that would consume all their dreams.

From Scratch chronicles three summers Tembi spends in Sicily with her daughter, Zoela, as she begins to piece together a life without her husband in his tiny hometown hamlet of farmers. Where once Tembi was estranged from Saro’s family, now she finds solace and nourishment—literally and spiritually—at her mother-in-law’s table. In the Sicilian countryside, she discovers the healing gifts of simple fresh food, the embrace of a close knit community, and timeless traditions and wisdom that light a path forward. All along the way she reflects on her and Saro’s romance—an incredible love story that leaps off the pages.

In Sicily, it is said that every story begins with a marriage or a death—in Tembi Locke’s case, it is both. “Locke’s raw and heartfelt memoir will uplift readers suffering from the loss of their own loved ones” (Publishers Weekly), but her story is also about love, finding a home, and chasing flavor as an act of remembrance. From Scratch is for anyone who has dared to reach for big love, fought for what mattered most, and those who needed a powerful reminder that life is...delicious.

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Mrs. Everything
by Jennifer Weiner

One of the best things about watching The Bachelor with friends are the discussions that reveal how every woman has different dreams at different times in her life and that’s okay—whether you’re a 24-year-old who’s ready for marriage or a 35-year-old who gives your rose to your career. Jennifer Weiner’s Mrs. Everything explores such diverting narratives beautifully. Detroit in the 1950s and ’60s was a turbulent time, and this novel encounters it all—Vietnam, the women’s lib movement, Woodstock—through the lens of two sisters who could not be more different. With the changing nation comes new desires, and this book, spanning generations, shows the trials that arise when Jo and Bethie Kaufman follow, flip, or flounder their dreams.

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Mrs. Everything
Jennifer Weiner

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