The Most Disappointing Reese's Book Club Reads, According To Reviews

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When Reese Witherspoon endorses a tantalizing read for her book club, sales tend to skyrocket. In fact, Reese's Book Club's first-ever pick, "Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine," became an instant favorite. Known for choosing page-turners that center around female protagonists, the "Your Place or Mine" star manages to find books that everyone can relate to, from historical novels to coming-of-age stories. Unfortunately, not all of Witherspoon's picks have gotten rave reviews, and a few duds have left fans asking, "What was she thinking?"

For those wondering, it's true that Witherspoon reads and selects every pick for Reese's Book Club. "We have a full-time bookworm, someone who's reading all the time for film and TV and book club," Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine, told Vox. "Reese really picks the books," she emphasized. While Witherspoon usually gets it right with hits like "The Nightingale," which is the best Reese's Book Club pick of all time, according to readers, five of her choices were so bad that even the most devoted bookworms had to put Witherspoon's choices down in disappointment.

Chosen as the summer 2025 young-adult pick for Reese's Book Club, "Stuck Up and Stupid" by "Ladies in Black" actor Angourie Rice and her mom, Kate Rice, had all the makings of being a good book. The story is based on Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" but modernized to take place on a beach in Australia. Lily, who represents Elizabeth Bennet, just wants to spend the summer relaxing, but along comes Dorian Khan's version of Mr. Darcy, a famous celebrity whose brooding personality clashes with the protagonist. Sadly, that's where the similarities end, and the plot of "Stuck Up and Stupid" ended up flopping like a fish washed ashore on Pippi Beach.

Written by the "Mean Girls" reboot star and her mom, this novel failed to live up to Austen fans' expectations, garnering a sad 2.94 rating on Goodreads. One reviewer wrote, "Oh nooooo. I had high hopes for this one, but it really didn't deliver. The writing style was my first issue — I hated it. It switched between characters in third person without any breaks, so one minute you're in Lily's head, and the next you're suddenly in Dorian's or Casey's." Another shared, "I liked the small town beach setting and the direction the story was taking, but the pacing was off and the characters didn't have ANY chemistry at all. ... I don't see how this was a pride and prejudice retelling. It was extremely disappointing." Well, that certainly doesn't bode well!

One of the worst-rated Reese's Book Club picks so far is "The Jetsetters" by Amanda Eyre Ward. The title teases a glamorous trip around the world, and while there is some traveling around must-see European countries, many readers found the book quite dull. Reese Witherspoon's March 2020 recommendation centers around a 70-something woman named Charlotte Perkins who wins a cruise trip and decides that's the chance to reunite her estranged kids, Lee, Regan, and Cord. Unfortunately, it's not the fuzzy family reunion she had hoped for, as they all either have buried secrets or are trapped in a cycle of loneliness.

If readers thought they were going to get a lighthearted beach read, they were wrong. "The writing was stilted, like a child wrote it. The narrator was not good either. There wasn't really a resolution for most of the characters so it feels like it was a book about whiny adults who feel bad for themselves," a reviewer shared on Goodreads, where the book has a 3.07-star rating. Another, who called the book "thin gruel" on Amazon, griped, "While the writer is accomplished, this story felt very amateurish. Not a single character earned my sympathy or admiration — they were all wimpy and whiny." Some readers did love "The Jetsetters" for the family drama, but many agreed that this just wasn't Ward's best writing.

The premise for the Reese's Book Club pick of January 2023, "The House in the Pines" by Ana Reyes, sounds interesting enough: Maya is traumatized after her friend Aubrey mysteriously dies when she was 17, and years later, she sees the same thing happen to a stranger online. She's convinced that a man named Frank, whom she and Aubrey were connected to, is responsible somehow, so she goes back to her hometown to find answers. As she tries to uncover how Frank got away with two apparent murders, Maya struggles with her Klonopin addiction, which she thinks is contributing to her hazy memory. Readers will discover a surprising twist at the end — if they get that far, that is.

Many readers struggled with "The House in the Pines," with one Reddit user asking, "I'm about 3/4 of the way done with The House in the Pines. Does this get any better?" One spoiled the ending by replying, "I'm now 3/4 the way done and putting it down. Someone tell me what happens! Lol. It's so dumb so far. But [is] it really that the guy can kill using hypnosis? Bc if so... GTFO of here!" Those who did finish the book regretted the time wasted, with one reviewer writing, "This was a terrible read. I struggled to finish and when the 'twist' was introduced I was mad I wasted as much time as I had." Perhaps that's why the book has only a 3.10-star rating on Goodreads.

To many readers, "L.A. Weather" by María Amparo Escandón wasn't worthy of being the Reese's Book Club pick for September 2021. The novel had many amusing elements, such as the Alvarado patriarch being obsessed with The Weather Channel and his ever-suffering wife Keila, who threatens him with a divorce. Then, you have their daughters: Claudia, who is a secret kleptomaniac; architect Olivia, who is trapped in an unhealthy marriage; and Patricia, who lives apart from her husband.

While some loved the telenovela aspect of the book, others didn't relate to the characters and found the author's political commentary unnecessary. "It's well written, but honestly had so much going on I couldn't find a storyline or a character to connect to. It felt a lot like a soap opera, plenty of difficult situations and drama, but no real depth into them," a reviewer noted on Amazon. Altogether, the book has a meager 3.17-star rating on Goodreads.

Reese Witherspoon's September 2022 pick was "On the Rooftop" by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, which follows three singing sisters, Ruth, Esther, and Chloe, and their momager, Vivian. Set in the 1950s, the trio is taking over the jazz world as the Salvations and soon catches the eye of a talent manager. Vivian knows this could catapult her daughters into stardom, but her dreams collapse when she finds out that they have other plans for their lives.

Book lovers were initially excited to delve into a historical fiction about an all-girls singing group, but unfortunately, they found "On the Rooftop" poorly executed. "It's just a series of events among characters we're not given enough to care about or grow to love or hate. There's no climax, and essentially no plot," a Goodreads user wrote. Another reader who couldn't make it through the book shared, "I tried y'all, but I promised myself that I would not 'push through' a book just for the sake of finishing. I had high hopes of a 'Dream Girls' type read, but unfortunately it was not that. It was just boring." With an average of 3.22 stars on Goodreads, Wilkerson Sexton's novel was just not a hit, even with Witherspoon's endorsement, which proves that even the "Legally Blonde" star can't get it right all the time.

Since we based Reese's Book Club's most disappointing reads on reviews, the first thing we did was go down her list of books to determine which ones were rated the lowest. We used reputable sources such as Amazon and Goodreads and chose the five with the fewest stars. We were then curious as to why readers were dissatisfied with Reese Witherspoon's picks and found many of their complaints had something in common, whether it was a weak plot line, poor writing, or characters that just didn't resonate with them. While none of Witherspoon's book recommendations received a perfect 5-star rating, the ones on our list received three stars or less, indicating that fans simply didn't agree with the media mogul's monthly read.