This past Thursday was my book club meeting in which we discussed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This was a very difficult book to bring about talking. Many of the members found it confusing, difficult to follow, and/or boring. On top of that out six myself and another were the only ones who finished and both of us are the most soft spoken. Secondly, the questions set by the publisher were worded in a way that it was hard to understand the question(s) themselves. Therefore, 90% of the meeting was socializing. While this was enjoyable I think we were all frustrated by the lack of conversation this book supplied. I guess you can’t win them all. I personally love this book and it was the second time I read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and was sad when I finished the trilogy as I knew I would never read a novel featuring Lisbeth again as the author died in 2004.
Anyway, our next meeting is The Bad Seed by William March, and following the book discussion will be a showing of the 1956 movie. I read The Bad Seed for the first time last year and immediately decided it will be an annual read as I already do with the film. Anyway, I’m thus very much looking forward to reading/watching this with a fresh group of eyes.
My mom's bookclub had ahard time with this one. She was the only one who finished it and admitted that she would probably read the next ones, too. The other just blank-stared her and told her they thought it was one of the worst books they'd ever encountered, and trashy to boot. One woman even said to my mother, "What kind of person would want to finish this book, much less read another?" and my mother replied, "Apparently a trashy one." I was kinda proud of her for not backing down. (And FYI, her book club is made of all senior citizens.)
That's what happened when I hosted a discussion of Cranford for my book club. Only one other person read it, so we socialized and ate cake (at least I provided dessert).
Here's hoping your next choice is more conducive to literary conversation!
I think it just has a slow beginning, but I think it's worth the pay off at the end (and the two sequels are amazing!).
I love The Bad Seed book and movie! Hope your book club gets a little more enthused about this book!
That would probably be a tricky book to discuss even if everyone liked it. There's a lot of tough themes and some of the Swedish socio-politics were hard to follow. Good for you & your book club for giving it a try 🙂
I read The Bad Seed earlier this year and it started me on a jag of reading about evil children. Fun stuff!