Warning: a librarian told me to skip the discussion questions in my book club guidebook

I followed her advice for 6 months and our group went from arguing over the same three themes to actually debating character motivations and plot holes, has anyone else found the pre-printed questions too limiting?

3 comments

3 Comments

alice3361mo ago

Oh my goodness, this is exactly what happened to me too. I used to think those questions were the whole point of a book club, like they were keeping us on track. But after a few months I started feeling like we were just reading to answer someone else's checklist, not to really talk about the book. Once my group tossed the guide sheets, the conversations got so much more interesting. We started noticing little details and asking each other "why do you think he did that?" instead of debating the same tired themes. It was a real eye-opener for me, now I would never go back to those pre-printed questions.

garcia.laura1mo ago

Feels like overthinking a book club to me.

milestaylor2d ago

Well dang, I gotta say I'm with the other commenter here. Book clubs are supposed to be about hanging out and talking about a story, not filling out some homework sheet like you're back in school. I've been in a couple book clubs over the years and the best conversations always came from someone just saying "what did you guys think about that part?" not from a printed list of questions.