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A friend said 'a book club pick is only good if it makes you mad' and now I'm thinking
We were picking our next read for our group in Denver and someone suggested a book I knew was super divisive. My friend Jamie, who's been in the club for 3 years, said straight up, 'The best picks are the ones that make at least half of us angry. If we all agree, it's boring.' I'd never thought of it that way. I always wanted us to pick stuff we'd all enjoy, but now I see her point. The meetings where we fight about a character's choice or the book's message are the ones I remember, not the ones where we just nod and say it was nice. Last month we read a novel with an unreliable narrator and two people almost left the group over it, but the debate was amazing. Should a book club actively seek out frustrating reads on purpose, or is that just setting up for a bad time?
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knight.diana5d ago
My Denver group's best talk was over a book everyone hated.
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