Unpopular opinion: the discussion guide ruined our book club debate on the last novel

I spent 2 hours prepping for our monthly meeting based on the official questions, but nobody wanted to talk about them because we all had completely different interpretations of the ending, so now the club is split on whether to ditch guides entirely - has anyone else had a moderator push a book club debate off track with a bad discussion sheet?

3 comments

3 Comments

taylor.jordan1mo ago

@phoenix_campbell88 yeah I just bring snacks now too. Guides kill the real talk.

the_ryan1mo ago

Oh man, that reminds me of something that happened to my buddy Steve. He went to a book club meeting ready to go, had all his notes, and the guide spent the first twenty minutes trying to prove the author was a secret politician. @taylor.jordan is right, once the guide starts that stuff the real fun just evaporates.

phoenix_campbell881mo ago

Oh man, "nobody wanted to talk about them" - that hits way too close to home. Our group had a similar disaster last month where the guide asked us to "analyze the symbolic meaning of the doorknob" when the real argument was about whether the main character was actually dead the whole time. I once showed up with a whole notebook full of answers and then spent the whole meeting defending why I thought the author was trolling us with a fake ending. Now I just show up with snacks and hope for the best, because clearly my prep game is not winning any awards.