Everyone has a girlfriend who’s into romantasy, a genre encapsulated by the portmanteau of romance and fantasy.
Goodreads ranked Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm as the most popular book published last year. And Goodreads reports Fourth Wing, the first book in the series, was the most popular book published in 2023.
That’s all to say there are scores of dedicated fans poring over the main character’s time as a dragon rider and soldier-in-training.
And some are here in Delaware, like Kiera McGillivray.
“I remember going to a bookstore when I was a child, like at midnight for book releases, and I found myself just doing that again this past year,” McGillivray said.
McGillivray is a marriage and family therapist and chief development and partnerships officer at the nonprofit Children and Families First. She’s also a member of a book club that meets in Wilmington. She said she’s always been a reader, but that hobby ebbed and flowed over time.
In the last year, it’s become more of a full-on obsession because of her introduction to romantasy. The cultural obsession with Fourth Wing is reminiscent of the Twilight-Hunger Games-Harry Potter era, when midnight releases were all the rage.
“When you read, you really gather this empathy, like you're so lost in a book and you're reading it, and you're getting to understand what's happening with this individual, that I think you inherently gain some form of empathy for the person,” McGillivray said.
Enjoying books as a group or as a culture still has an appeal, even as Americans are reading less. A 2025 study found daily reading for pleasure in the U.S. declined by more than 40% over the last two decades.
And on top of that, literacy is falling in the U.S. Average reading scores for high school seniors saw their lowest level since 1992 last year.
But social media trends show reading is still very much alive. So-called BookTok and Bookstagram are thriving, with some influencers turning their content into full-time work. And it’s here that readers gather in droves, uplifting indie and traditional titles alike into pop culture phenomenons.
But traditional book clubs offer opportunities you can’t get online – namely live and in-person connections.
McGillivray said she reads to escape from reality and reduce stress. But there’s an additional reason she reads with her friends as part of a book club.
“For me, I think it's a space to build your community, so you might meet new friends,” McGillivray said. “You get the chance to hear other people's perspectives and kind of get an idea of what maybe they're thinking when they're reading the book. And as a therapist, that's always very interesting for me personally.”
There are dual purposes to joining a book club – first, the benefits you get from reading, and second, the benefits you get from engaging with a text as a group.
University of Delaware professor Stephanie Del Tufo pointed to the concept of social bridging when talking about what people get out of their book clubs.
Social capital is the value gained from positive connections with people. Bonding capital is what you gain when discussing with people like you – your friends, family, people with similar ideologies.
Bridging social capital occurs when you connect with people who aren’t like you, or who have identities that might otherwise divide two people. That’s where the magic happens, Del Tufo said.
“And this bridging causes friction,” Del Tufo said. “It demands more from your brain. There's no shorthand, there's no shared history. And in a book club, when you have these types of frictions, it leads to anticipatory responses, right? You're reading differently because you're going to discuss it later… And because of that, you're increasing the cognitive load rather than just kind of passively consuming information. And so it deepens your understanding of a text.”
Brandywine Hundred library specialist Greta White runs two book clubs at the library, one fiction and one non-fiction. At a recent meeting for the fiction club, White’s group read The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
The novel details the friendship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, a Black civil rights activist.
“And the discussion became very interesting because a lot of the ladies in the group, I mean, if you're Black, you relate to Dr. Bethune's character more. And if you're white, you related to Eleanor Roosevelt's character more,” White said.
When discussing a scene where Bethune feels intimidated riding on a train, a white book club member said she wasn’t sure why the character was automatically on guard.
“This was a white lady saying this to another white lady,” White said. “You can't put yourself in their skin… But the thing is, it's like for us to say you're uncomfortable on a train, that's a minor inconvenience. But for someone during that era to be riding a train at a time when you're talking about people getting lynched, it could be a matter of life and death for her. And the lady had an a-ha moment.”
When readers are emotionally transported into a story, they become more empathetic, according to a 2013 study. And that’s not a one-time gain.
Reading fiction that emotionally transports the reader leads to higher empathy in the reader – and the same is not true for non-fiction readers, though there are certainly benefits to reading nonfiction as well.
Del Tufo said fiction makes it so the reader is – to a lesser extent – going through the motions of feeling what the character is feeling or living their experience.
“The act of going through someone's journey with them, whether it's a book or a movie, allows you to kind of learn from their perspective and develop empathy for that person,” Del Tufo said. “You suddenly understand a point of view you never could because you hadn't experienced it.”
White concurred and said that can prompt growth.
“You just learn so much [more] than if you just stay within your four walls and within your comfort zone,” White said. “You know, this brings you outside of that, and it opens up other worlds and other opportunities to learn about other cultures and things that other people do.”
And when reading as a group, that empathy can grow even further by coming together with people unlike oneself to discuss the shared experience of a book.
“This turns this act of reading into creation rather than consumption because you're creating that meaning together… That friction that we create, that creates deeper meaning, is really tied to talking to individuals not like you, right?” Del Tufo said. “So a really diverse book club is more likely to give you people with different perspectives than a book club of people you talk to all the time, right, or who are in similar circles.”
Book clubs also attack another growing issue - loneliness. Feelings of loneliness are common in the U.S., with 60% of adults reporting they feel lonely. The same study finds Generation Z to be the loneliest generation, with almost 80% reporting feeling lonely.
One way to help is by creating more third places, spaces we spend time that aren’t home or work. One study finds local places that are convenient and comfortable enhance older adults’ social interactions and network.
“The idea of just being able to sit in this kind of third space – it's not school, it's not work, it's not quite home – allows them to meet, interact and kind of create new identities and blur those bounds between the traditional role that they serve as an older person or as a mom or a grandmother, and kind of develop a sense of belonging in these groups,” Del Tufo said.
The purest form of third places are areas that are free to go to. And book clubs can be third places – free, accessible and socially stimulating.
McGillivray said it’s a relief to have book clubs as an outlet.
“Sometimes we're so online and everything's via social media that we don't have that time to connect in person,” McGillivray said. “And book club is a way to do that and to connect with folks, and it's an easy kind of way because you don't have to create new conversation. You’re going in knowing you’re going to talk about a book.”
White said if Delawareans want to join a book club, the best place to start is at their local library where they may find clubs like hers. White’s fiction book club meets next on March 4 to discuss Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid Chair.
“First and foremost, check the local library system,” White said. “And if you go on the website, and you look them up on all the different branches, there's a whole listing of different types of book clubs that people can join if they're interested, and it has various genres.”
McGillivray recommended going with a friend if someone is worried about showing up alone.
Bookstores and businesses throughout the state also host free monthly book clubs, including Huxley & Hiro in Wilmington, Rail Haus in Dover and Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach.
Or, like McGillivray, folks can create their own book club with friends and meet over coffee, drinks or at a local library.
The only thing left is to pick a book. And McGillivray, Del Tufo and White all had suggestions on where to start.
McGillivray’s book club recently finished “Heart the Lover” by Lily King.
“That was a fantastic book, and I felt so connected to the story,” McGillivray said. “And it was just so well written and well done. So, ‘Heart the Lover’ by Lily King would be a recommendation.”
Del Tufo said she loves all things Jill Lepore.
“But in particular, ‘The Secret History of Wonder Woman’ is a great read,” Del Tufo said. “I also like Patricia Highsmith's ‘The Price of Salt.’ I think it was kind of a groundbreaking one at the time that was introduced, and we've seen it rebooted a couple times recently as Carol. If we're looking at a slightly younger audience, all things Tamora Pierce's Tortall series is excellent.”
Finally, White said her favorite genre is historical fiction.
“There are a lot of books that I love in that genre, and a lot of authors like Lisa See, for example,” White said. “I mean, I like her series of books that she writes. Kristin Hannah, she's another great author. She did ‘The Four Winds.’ And every book that she writes is just, in my opinion, excellent.”
