Sami Thomason, a 2011 graduate, has returned to OHS to revive a book club in association with Square Books, Jr.

Thomason is a book seller and the social media coordinator at Square Books, Jr. When she was younger, she enjoyed participating in the book club, so she decided to bring it back.

“[In high school] I was in the book club at Square Books, Jr., and when I started working there again, I think two years ago, I decided to start it back up,” Thomason said. “So, it’s mine for now.”

Book club members will be working on a variety of literary skills, and there will be appearances by teen authors.

“I would like to have more author involvement,” Thomason said. “We’re getting a lot of teen authors to come sign this year, which is really cool, and I would love for book club kids to get one-on-one interaction time with authors. Also, we work a lot on our critical writing skills. It looks great on college applications. I just want to get the teens in the community involved.”

All genres and types of novels will be discussed during meetings, working to broaden the students study and understanding of novels.

“We talk about review writing, we talk a lot about genre,” Thomason said. “We’ve started talking about ‘book tube’ [a collective of people in Youtube where readers film themselves discussing their favorite books], and the difference in that and doing verbal reviews. We’ve talked a lot about the differences in school reading and the things you want to read for fun, and how you can connect those genres.”

Members of the book club will have an exclusive privilege: they will be able to choose from a variety of pre-released books, straight from the publishers themselves.

“They get to choose their own books,” Thomason said. “What we do is we get a selection of books from the publishers before they come out. They’re called advanced reader copies. What I do is I let every member take four advanced reader copies a month, and if they write a review for it they can keep it. We also talk about what y’all have been reading in school.”

The club is set to meet once a month on the second to last Friday at Square Books, Jr.

“I think the book club is a great opportunity because not only do the students get to read the books for free, but they get exposed to a wide variety of young adult literature,” OHS librarian Amanda Osborne said.

New members of the book club have the opportunity to expand their literary understanding, read new teen author novels and meet new people.

“I am interested in book club because it is a great opportunity to read books that interest me and also discuss those books with others that share interest in reading,” new member and sophomore Mia McKey said.