An unconventional book club becomes ‘found family’ in New Bedford

A landscaper from Bourne. A barista from Somerset. An entomologist. A nurse. A music therapist. These are just some of the people in New Bedford’s BYOBook Club.

“My friend group has exploded since joining book club,” said Emily Damore, who has attended since the club’s first meeting last year. Though she only moved to New Bedford in 2024, she jokes with her partner — who grew up here — that she has more friends.

The book club is full of “super welcoming, very warm dorks,” said Lilith Wurzburg, a member of the LGBTQ+ community who said this group has helped her find a feeling of safety. “They accept me for who I am,” she said.

Sebastian Nothwell, a local author of historical queer romance novels, said the book club has helped him to meet new people, get out of the house more, and visit new spots in the city he would not have visited otherwise. 

“It’s made me feel more overall connected to the community,” Nothwell said.

But this is not the traditional club that agrees to the same book and chats idly about the latest chapter. Instead, each member is encouraged to bring their own book. Nothwell has brought “Bunny,” a horror novel by Mona Awad, after Wurzburg recommended it during a meeting. Several members recommended the horror novel “We Used to Live Here,” leading Hazel Scribner to bring it to one meeting. 

Some members also elect to listen to audiobooks. Founder Kaylin Pacheco has listened to “Broken Country,” a historical fiction novel by Clare Leslie Hall.

Each meeting is held in a different location, shining a light on different local businesses or places of interest. During a social hour, members might share what they have read, or just mingle and meet new friends.

The club has grown since 30 people attended its inaugural meeting last August. Today it has accumulated more than 1,000 Instagram followers. The club meets intermittently, usually twice a month. Some meetings have had up to 40 members attend.

The locations draw some people in — like Mass Escape, an escape room downtown, and Carabiner’s Climbing & Fitness, a rock-climbing gym on Parker Street. What keeps members coming back time and time again, however, is the community that the club has fostered.

At a meeting last month, approximately 15 members met at 8:20 a.m. to board the commuter train heading to Boston’s South Station. They made their way onto the train’s upper level and looked for a large empty section of seats where they could fit next to each other.

They were off to a bookstore in Cambridge, Lovestruck Books & Cafe.

Huddled next to each other on faux leather seats, they twisted and turned to talk with those surrounding them on the roughly 100-minute-long ride. They filled the cabin with laughter and poked at one another. The group passed around a notebook to make a group sketch commemorating the trip.

Wurzburg said the trip was “amazing,” adding it was crazy to “have adult friends and go on field trips.”

Nothwell said the Lovestruck staff were knowledgeable and friendly, and Scribner commended the book displays featuring LGBTQ+ romance and novels containing characters with disabilities during disability pride month.

The BYOBook Club has helped Scribner come out of their shell. Scribner began attending meetings after moving to New Bedford and not knowing anyone. “I was definitely very nervous and more shy when I first came. And now I talk a lot,” they said.

The idea for the club came from Pacheco, and she calls it her “brain baby.” Pacheco noticed a lack of third spaces in New Bedford, and decided to build up the reading community in the city herself.

Pacheco has seen a change in herself since founding the club. Through this community, she said, she has found the courage to talk to more people. She believes it has helped her to come out of her comfort zone, she said, transforming her natural shyness into a more outgoing personality.

“I’ve made so many beautiful connections with so many great people, and I can say that I have a really great number of friends and people I can count on — and just enjoy life with,” Pacheco said.

For one member, BYOBook Club is more than nice people — it’s a source of found family.

Abi Oyedeji moved to Fall River from El Paso, Texas, in May 2025. She found the book club through a Facebook event. Several people flocked to Oyedeji at the end of her first meeting to shower her with recommendations of things to do in the area, asking her for her Instagram handle and phone number.

The more Oyedeji attended meetings, the more she began viewing them as family rather than friends. “These are my people. These are the people I’m going to spend time with. Life with. I’m gonna cry with them. I’m gonna be there for them,” she said.

In June, Oyedeji decided to move to New Bedford to be closer to her book club friends. “It’s affected my purpose in life, in a way that I have other people who understand me,” she said.

And while the books convened this community, they are rarely what members say when asked why they stay. Friendships that spilled outside of meetings; confidence they did not know they had; and a community that made a new city feel familiar. New Bedford’s BYOBook Club has given these outsiders a place to belong.

Julien Pedro is a summer intern with the New Bedford Light, as part of the South Coast Internship designed for local students. Email Julien Pedro at jpedro@newbedfordlight.org