Books Under 300 Pages to Help You Reach a Reading Goal!

All of the books on today's list are intended to be shorter reads. These would be perfect for former book lovers who are trying to get back into reading, busy bodies who need a fast read, anyone who is trying to reach a 'reading goal', and non-readers who want to get into reading!

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Thriller, 254 Pages

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the unsolved murder of a preteen girl and the disappearance of another. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.

Gillian Flynn is also the author of Gone Girl, a book with a movie adaptation that really pushed the reading population towards thrillers. When you have an interest in a new author but are unsure if you will enjoy their books or not, checking out their shortest book is a good measure. Any author can create a story with 300-500 pages, but one that can craft a masterful story under that amount is impressive. If an author creates an enjoyable book under 300 pages, imagine what they will do with more than that! If you want something twisted---this is it!

The First Husband by Laura Dave

Women's Fiction, 260 Pages

A savvy, page-turning novel about a woman torn between her husband and the man she thought she'd marry.

Annie Adams is days away from her thirty-second birthday and thinks she has finally found some happiness. She visits the world's most interesting places for her syndicated travel column and she's happily cohabiting with her movie director boyfriend Nick in Los Angeles. But when Nick comes home from a meeting with his therapist (aka "futures counselor") and announces that he's taking a break from their relationship so he can pursue a woman from his past, the place Annie had come to call home is shattered. Reeling, Annie stumbles into her neighborhood bar and finds Griffin-a grounded, charming chef who seems to be everything Annie didn't know she was looking for. Within three months, Griffin is Annie's husband and Annie finds herself trying to restart her life in rural Massachusetts.

This is basically a Hallmark movie but in book form. If that sounds like something you are into, I definitely suggest you read it!

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

Memoir, 275 Pages

A collection of humorous autobiographical essays by the Academy Award-nominated actress and star of Up in the Air and Pitch Perfect.

Even before she made a name for herself on the silver screen starring in films like Pitch Perfect, Up in the Air, Twilight, and Into the Woods, Anna Kendrick was unusually small, weird, and “10 percent defiant.”

At the ripe age of thirteen, she had already resolved to “keep the crazy inside my head where it belonged. Forever. But here’s the thing about crazy: It. Wants. Out.” In Scrappy Little Nobody, she invites readers inside her brain, sharing extraordinary and charmingly ordinary stories with candor and winningly wry observations.

With her razor-sharp wit, Anna recounts the absurdities she’s experienced on her way to and from the heart of pop culture as only she can—from her unusual path to the performing arts (Vanilla Ice and baggy neon pants may have played a role) to her double life as a middle-school student who also starred on Broadway to her initial “dating experiments” (including only liking boys who didn’t like her back) to reviewing a binder full of butt doubles to her struggle to live like an adult woman instead of a perpetual “man-child.”

Enter Anna’s world and follow her rise from “scrappy little nobody” to somebody who dazzles on the stage, the screen, and now the page—with an electric, singular voice, at once familiar and surprising, sharp and sweet, funny and serious (well, not that serious).

I am a big Pitch Perfect fan and as a result am also an Anna Kendrick fan. As far as celebrity memoirs go, I think this one is pretty strong. If you want a light and humorous memoir---give this one a chance!

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Thriller, 287 Pages

A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

This book was recently adapted into a show but I will admit that I haven't watched it yet. This book captured me quickly and while I could see it translating well onto television, I just haven't felt the urge to watch the show yet. This was a pretty solid thriller, especially for one under 300 pages. If you like psychological thrillers, this would be perfect for you.

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

Contemporary Fiction, 294 Pages

Sutter Keely. He’s the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually.

Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever.

This is one of my favorite books. I think I love it so much because of the time in my life when I originally read it. It may not land with everyone the way that it did with me but for being less than 300 pages, I think its worth a read!

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Contemporary Fiction, 297 Pages

Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.

So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.

A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

I think that Celeste Ng is a great author. You may be familiar with another book of hers, Little Fires Everywhere. Little Fires Everywhere was made into a Hulu series starring Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon and I believe that this book is in talks to be adapted too (don't quote me on that one). Get ahead of any possible book adaptation and crack this one open for your next rainy weekend read-a-thon.

I do think that it is important to note that not everyone's reading habits are the same. I have certainly noticed that my reading habits fluctuate depending on things like the time of the year and the other things I have going on in my life at the moment. A book that may take me a week to get through can take another reader a couple of hours. In 2023, we are granting ourselves some grace and we aren't comparing our reading habits to everyone else!! Reading should be a hobby, not a chore! Reading is reading, no matter how many books you finish. Those who read 2 books as just as much of a reader as those who read 102 books last year!

As always, thank you for reading!

XO,

Madison