Hot take: most book clubs skip the actual debating part

I noticed it after joining three different book clubs over the last year. Everyone shows up, says if they liked the book or not, then moves on to chit chat about work and kids. Nobody actually argues about what the author meant or whether a character made a dumb choice. Last week we read a thriller with a huge plot hole and I brought it up thinking it would spark something. The group leader just shrugged and said it didn't matter because the ending was fun. That bugged me. So I started keeping a little list of specific things I disagreed with while reading. Now at meetings I throw out one of those points like "was the narrator even reliable?" People actually engage instead of just nodding. Has anyone else run into clubs that avoid confrontation like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker_campbell12d ago

Nah, I kinda like that book clubs are low pressure hangouts. Not everything needs to be a debate, sometimes people just want to chat about their week and say "yep that book was cool.

nelson.finley12d ago

Yeah I hear you @parker_campbell. My group tried doing the whole deep dive thing for a while and it just felt like work, you know? Like we were all trying to prove we read the book. What actually worked for us was just letting people share whatever they wanted, even if it was just "I liked the part where..." or "this character annoyed me." That way nobody felt dumb if they didn't catch some hidden meaning or whatever. It kept people coming back too, which is the whole point.