‘Never Let Me Go’: YSU’s book of the month for March

Members of YSU Book Club meet up for introductions and to discuss their first book of the month. Photo courtesy of Alexa Kurimski

By Jessica Stamp

Youngstown State University has many clubs and organizations to join, but until recently lacked a book club. In September 2021, Alexa Kurimski, a junior majoring in finance, decided to create the club because she felt “campus didn’t really have anything like it.” 

“I had been looking to join a book club forever, and there wasn’t anything around here that was like that, so I decided to look into it and ended up creating [the YSU book club] and so I kind of run it as the president and that’s been really awesome,” Kurimski said. 

The book club has an email list with around 60-70 people who have signed up, but there are only approximately 20 members who are regularly active and participate in the meetings.

Kurimski said the club meets at the end of every month to have discussions about the book of the month.

“We do one discussion meeting per month, and then we also have one to two socials a month, just depending on everybody’s schedules,” Kurimski said. 

The members read a variety of book genres from historical to contemporary. For the month of February, the club read a romance book. 

Kurimski said she likes how much diversity there is within the club.

“We have so much diversity in the group. … so many different majors, different kinds of people from all different kinds of backgrounds,” Kurimski said. 

Hope Hefright, a sophomore majoring in graphic design, joined the book club because she loves to read and found it hard to create friendships on campus.

“These past couple of years, it’s been kind of hard to make friends on campus,” Hefright said. “When I saw there was a book club, I was super excited to make friends that way and meet like-minded people.” 

Hefright’s favorite book she read in the club was “Challenger Deep” by Neal Shusterman, which focuses on mental health and schizophrenia.

Brianna Olinkik, a junior majoring in personal communication and YSU Book Club vice president, decided to join the club because of her friendship with Kurimski and her desire to read more. 

“I kind of realized that once [Kurimski] brought [book club] up, I was like, ‘I haven’t really been into reading since I started college unless it was for class,’ and I used to be really big into reading,” Olinkik said.

She said becoming vice president for the club has impacted her in many ways. She feels it has helped her navigate time management better and being able to contact and gather people together. 

The book of the month for March is “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. The group plans to meet for the monthly discussion at 6:30 p.m. March 28 in the Esterly Room in Kilcawley Center. 

If interested in joining the YSU Book Club, message its Instagram @ysubookclub.