5 Read With Jenna Book Club Picks That Are Great On Audio, According To Reviews

Each time Jenna Bush Hager unveils a new monthly pick for her "Read With Jenna" book club, readers rush to get a copy. Before long, the chosen book rockets up the bestseller lists, bookstore shelves are swiftly relieved of their stock, and a fresh wave of readers prepares to fall in love. For the devoted, it's a pleasure. But enthusiasm, however sincere, does not always guarantee time. There are only so many hours in a day, and sitting down with uninterrupted time to read one book a month can feel like a luxury — especially in an era where attention is a dwindling resource.

It is at this point, the audiobook raises its hand — the unassuming modern savior. A medium once dismissed as a concession for multitaskers, now reclaimed as a legitimate way to engage with literature. Stories are consumed whilst commuting, cooking, walking the dog, folding laundry, in the garden — anywhere! As Bush Hager herself put it to her TODAY viewers, "Many Read With Jenna Members prefer to listen to audiobooks. We all know it's a really good option."

Of course, like with anything, not all audiobooks are created equally. Luckily, in the age of Goodreads reviews and internet commentaries, we have a discerning community of listeners more than willing to report back. According to those listeners, these five Read With Jenna Picks have distinguished themselves in the crowded world of audio storytelling. It seems sometimes, the best way to read is not to read at all.

Shelby Van Pelt's "Remarkably Bright Creatures" holds a curious, singular place in the Read With Jenna canon. With its decades-old disappearance and clues hiding in plain sight, it's technically a mystery — holding its place as one of her best mystery and thriller picks. But its cozy premise and benign characters also render the novel one of the club's best feel good picks.

The story is set in the Sowell Bay Aquarium, where we meet Marcellus — a highly intelligent octopus nearing the end of his life. From his tank, he offers sharp observations about the humans who pass by, including Tova, a 70-year-old widow who cleans the aquarium by night. Tova is still grieving from the mystery of her son's disappearance thirty years earlier. And as her bond with Marcellus deepens, long-buried questions begin to resurface.

The book has become a runaway success, selling millions of copies, landing repeatedly on bestseller lists, winning the McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize, and attracting a film adaptation from Netflix. But in audio form, many believe it truly swims. A Reddit user made a valid point: "I thought there was no way I would ever enjoy a book about an octopus, but some of my favorite chapters were his," they said. "And don't even get me started on the audiobook. It was so so so good." Another bookworm, this time on Goodreads, praised narrator Michael Urie for his "phenomenal job as Marcellus."

"The Wedding People" earned a spot on Jenna Bush Hager's Summer 2025 reading list — no small feat, considering it was stacked full of hit books. In the gilded postcard perfection of Newport, Rhode Island, Phoebe Stone checks into the Cornwall Inn for what's supposed to be a quiet weekend. She's the only guest not tied to the wedding taking over the place. At what might generously be called a low point, she arrives solo, with neither her husband nor a plan. But this is a romantic comedy, after all – and readers bear witness to a brilliantly chaotic weekend of genre-perfect misadventures.

Fans of the audiobook version have been particularly effusive. One five-star Goodreads reviewer confessed: "I binged the audiobook in under 24 hours but would have finished in one sitting if I could have." A particular scene was so funny, she said "I kept rewinding it to laugh again and had tears streaming down my face."

"The Girl with the Louding Voice" was Jenna's pick for February 2020. Its roots are personal: "The inspiration," author Abi Daré said to the Guardian Nigeria News, "came from a conversation I had with my daughter about how easily we take education for granted." Such a moment of domestic reflection opened a door into a much larger story, "about the millions of girls around the world, especially in Nigeria, who don't have the same opportunities." And so, narrator Adunni was born.

A 14-year-old girl in rural Nigeria, Adunni refuses to be silenced by the circumstances of her birth. Sold into domestic servitude, and repeatedly told to lower her voice, she resolves instead to find her "louding voice." Jenna herself told TODAY, "there were times when I felt like Adunni was whispering, singing and in parts crying to me." The TV star was clearly won over by this "young girl whose resilience and grit drive her, until her voice is loud and clear."

In a novel so concerned with the act of speaking up, it feels only right that the audiobook gives that voice real breath. One listener, who warmed to its "laughter, love, fear, betrayal, anguish, and finally triumph," added on Goodreads, "I don't always write reviews on audiobooks that I receive from my library but this book is spectacular and not to be missed."

Few novels achieve a perfect equilibrium between playful and piercing — and fewer still are awarded the National Book Award for doing exactly that. But Jason Mott's "Hell of a Book" is different: ambitious in structure, relentlessly incisive in subject matter, and surprisingly entertaining (even when the subject matter resists levity). Mott follows two parallel stories. In one, an unnamed Black author zigzags across America promoting his novel, slipping in and out of surreal encounters with a child known only as The Kid. In the other, a young boy named Soot grows up in the rural South, enduring cruelty towards the darkness of his skin.

If that sounds too heavy for pleasurable reading, fear not. "It is a book that I tried to make very serious but also very lighthearted," Mott told Bush Hager on TODAY. "I hope that people are able to laugh as much as they're able to think." The former First Daughter certainly resonated with that sentiment, calling it "a beautiful story about family love and dedication to finding out who we are."

It's one hell of an audiobook, too, gaining even more texture in the medium. Two narrators trade off between the novel's narrative threads, giving each its own distinct rhythm. "The audio version was absolutely fabulous," one Goodreads reviewer wrote, as a result.

If you've found yourself on the literary It Girl or dark academia sides of TikTok, you might have heard Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" without even realizing it — since several snippets from the audiobook have gone viral in past years. Here, a close-knit group of intellectuals is seduced by a teacher and swept into primal, volatile Bacchanalian urges. The novel, still widely circulated despite its 1992 release, is narrated by Tartt herself. That alone gives it a certain cultish appeal — a thrilling story of obsession and aesthetic purity, told in the precise, Southern-laced voice that wrote it.

The book has its own active subreddit — attestation to its unfaltering mystique — and the audio form in particular has cultivated a passionate audience. The verdict is mixed in places, but for many, hearing Tartt read this tale of college campus murder feels like stepping further into the mythos. "It's so cool hearing the book being read from the author herself — it completely comes to life," one user wrote. Another lauded on the platform, "Donna Tartt has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard." Boasting a 4.3 rating on Audible and inspiring lively discussion across platforms, the audiobook has more than held its own.