The Book Genre That Barely Gets Picked For The Read With Jenna Book Club

If you've recently fallen in literary love with a Read With Jenna Book Club pick, it's only natural you'll comb through the rest of the list to find another good read. But if you're in search of a good fantasy, sci-fi, or horror story, you won't have much luck finding a title.

These genres rarely, if ever, get mentioned in Jenna's monthly picks. While she has a wide variety of selections from authors of all kinds of backgrounds and represents genres like historical fiction, family life, coming-of-age tales, and romantic love stories, the club hardly ever ventures into anything that might have readers feeling a bit speculative about reality, unsettled, and perhaps even a bit startled.

Don't get us wrong, the Read With Jenna Book Club has done an amazing job introducing readers to a myriad of works. From her very first heartbreaking and love-affirming picks to selections of poetry, Jenna Bush Hager goes above and beyond to present readers with something to look forward to every single month.

The club is doing so well that there was even a two-day Read With Jenna Book Festival held in May 2025. But, we have to say, it wouldn't be a bad idea for the club to start showcasing underrepresented genres. We don't want any reader to find themselves empty-handed when browsing for a Read With Jenna pick.

Jenna's Book Club picks tend to be emotionally layered stories about the meaning of life. The honorably mentioned titles are often centered on identity, resilience, love, and personal growth, which is no coincidence. The books Jenna Bush Hager personally wrote, like "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope" and "Everything Beautiful in Its Time: Seasons of Love and Loss," center on themes of human connection, self-discovery, and family.

A glance at her Goodreads profile will also tell you a lot about the author and avid reader. She's got a strong preference for emotionally-driven literary fiction and memoirs. Of all the books she listed as read, there wasn't one horror or fantasy in sight. However, her last entry into "currently reading" was a sci-fi dystopian novel, "Camp Zero" by Michelle Min Sterling. Whether she finished it or not is unclear, but it shows she dips her toes into genres that stray from her usual picks.

The book club host was also asked by a fellow Goodreads reader how she chooses her books, and Hager responded, "We read a ton of books every month, and our mission is to highlight debut and diverse authors. The most important aspect of choosing a book is that it is well-written and compelling ..." It's reassuring to hear from the host herself that the book club prioritizes the story rather than the genre.