I had so much fun talking with People Magazine about my passion for reading and my book club!
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You likely know Raegan Revord from her breakout role as Missy Cooper, the snarky twin sister of Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage) on seven seasons of the CBS hit Young Sheldon. What you may not know is that the actress is also a dedicated reader, book club host and soon-to-be debut author — all before the age of 17.
“My parents started reading to me right away,” Revord tells PEOPLE. “We have a lot of teachers and readers in our family, and so we always had a surplus of books. That’s kind of where I started my journey as a book reader.”
Following Young Sheldon’s series finale in May 2024, Revord is staying busy as the founder of Read with Raegan, an online book club aimed toward young readers. Launched in 2019, Read with Raegan is open for anyone to join — Revord picks a new book each month, and invites participants to read along with her, then join online discussions about the books once they’re finished.
Revord says she started Read with Raegan due to her own love of literature (“I had a lot of people who obviously knew I was a reader and an insane bookworm”), but also because of the lack of book clubs created specifically for young people.
“I didn’t see that space for kids to fall in love with reading,” Revord says.
Over the past two years, Revord has selected an array of both adult and young adult books, including the award-winning novel The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty and the YA thriller Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis. She’s also partial to interactive activities, like helming an online scavenger hunt to find all of the Taylor Swift references in Every Time You Hear That Song by Jenna Voris, her April 2024 pick, and interviewing the authors themselves.
“My biggest goal is to make it not like an interview, but like a conversation,” Revord says. “And, fingers crossed, I’m doing that.”
Though celebrity book clubs are nothing new, millennial and Gen Z-led clubs are on the rise. Whether you’re taking recommendations from Emma Roberts, Dua Lipa or Kaia Gerber, these book clubs have become a way for celebrities to both share what they’re reading and encourage their fans to join them. It’s no different for Revord, though that responsibility doesn’t come without its challenges
“It kind of is trying to figure out [if the club is] attention-snagging enough that people will be like, ‘Oh I could put down a phone for this,’” says Revord, who has a soft spot for fantasy and murder mysteries. “I try to find stories that are interesting from the get-go and stories that are diverse because I want people to feel seen and find someone in each story that they can relate to.”
Read with Raegan, Revord notes, is open to everyone, and a community that she’s proud to have created. The actress often hears from fans who think the club is “so cool,” and reads comments from parents who tell her that her recommendations helped their kids fall in love with reading.
“Recently I had a teacher from London who was saying that she had been using the book club recommendations that I’ve been giving to help foster the love of reading in her classroom,” Revord says. “I’ll remember that comment forever because it was one of the coolest things to me.”
Even before she began acting, Revord was also always interested in writing — when she was younger, she and a friend would create books together during recess (a favorite topic to cover was American Girl dolls.)
“[When] I was maybe 11 or 12, then I started considering [writing] more seriously and being like, ‘This is something I could see myself doing,’” Revord says. She was writing a fantasy novel (“My Notes app looks like a tornado went through it”) when the idea for a rom-com came to her. That idea turned into her debut novel, Rules for Fake Girlfriends, publishing next fall.
The novel, which follows a teenager who teams up with a new friend to finish the scavenger hunt her late mother left behind, is pegged as perfect for fans of YA romances like Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins and I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston. Revord says she “cried so much” when she first signed with her publisher, Wednesday Books, but one of the biggest surprises about becoming an author was learning how to switch gears between writing and acting.
“It’s kind of funny because it’s like you’re Missy, and then you’re a writer. And it was a learning curve,” she says. Revord’s dedication to her craft followed her straight to the Young Sheldon set, where she would write between takes and hide her laptop in between the cushions on Cooper family’s couch once the cameras started rolling.
And while Revord is also spending her time post-finale catching up with her former castmates — and looking forward to an appearance on the show’s upcoming spinoff Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage — her literary endeavors are still in full swing. One of her biggest challenges right now? Choosing which book to finish next.
“The problem is, I read like five books at once. That’s the issue,” Revord says. “People are like, ‘What are you reading right now?’ I’m like, ‘Sit down. This is going to take a little bit.’”
