My book club's group chat blew up after I suggested we skip the discussion questions

Last Tuesday night at our meeting in the back of Brew & Bindery, I casually said we should just talk about what we liked and hated instead of using the official guide. Three members got visibly upset, and one woman said I was 'undermining the whole purpose of a book club.' I honestly thought it would make things more natural, but now two people are threatening to leave the group. Has anyone else tried ditching the structure and had it backfire this hard?

2 comments

2 Comments

terryb1116d ago

Oh man, you might as well have told them you were burning the book next time for all the drama that caused. I swear some book club folks treat those discussion questions like they're written on stone tablets handed down from some higher power. Like come on, the whole point of reading together is to actually have a real conversation, not a rigid Q&A session where you're scared to say something that isn't on the approved list. But hey, I've learned the hard way that some people really need that structure to feel safe, so now I just let them do their thing for fifteen minutes and then steer it into actual fun territory once they've calmed down. If two people are actually threatening to leave over a suggestion though, that group sounds like it was already on borrowed time anyway.

karen41016d ago

Guessing you've never been in a group where one loud person completely derails everything if you don't stick to the script.