Can we talk about the guy in my book club who argued for 20 minutes that a character's middle name was the key to the whole plot?

He pulled out a family tree he'd made on poster board during a debate about a minor subplot in chapter 3, and I just sat there wondering if he'd missed the point of the entire novel.

2 comments

2 Comments

emma_baker6111d ago

Oh man, I literally just read an article about how some book clubs have turned into weird power struggles like this. It said some people treat reading like a puzzle to solve instead of a story to feel, and that's exactly what your guy is doing with the middle name thing. Like, cool that he mapped out a family tree on poster board, but did he even notice the main theme about grief that the author was hitting on every other page? I'd probably start bringing snacks just to have something to do while he monologues.

blair_chen8111d ago

I used to be one of those puzzle solvers honestly. I would bring sticky notes with character connection charts to book club and feel proud of myself for finding every hidden detail. But your comment about the grief theme really hit me, that author spent three whole chapters on the main character's silence after losing her mom and I barely registered it because I was too busy mapping out the timeline. Now I feel like I missed the whole point of the book while trying to win at it.