Book Club Experience

Recently, someone in my neighborhood started a book club and invited me to join. I run the book club at my library so I was really eager to attend one that I was not in charge of running. Because this was the first meeting of this book club there were only four of us that attended. The book chosen for this book club was The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent. There was a vote that happened in the book club's Facebook group prior to this meeting so that everyone had a say in what we read. The plan for the book club is to read a variety of genres so that we can cover a wide range of interests. We met at a local coffee shop to discuss the book. While we were at this meeting, after discussing the current month's book, we suggested books that we could read for next month's book club and chose the next meeting date. We did not suggest any fantasy novels so that we could do something different. Once we had all of our suggestions it was put up as a poll on Facebook so we could all vote on the one that we read next month.

The person that started the book club is actually a school librarian so I think I expected her to lead the discussion more than she did. She didn’t have any discussion questions which kind of made the beginning of the meet up just a little bit awkward. The person that started the book club brought her daughter and they were the only ones who knew each other. Me and the other girl there had never met each other or the other two girls that were there. It felt like myself and the other girl that attended (not the starter of the book club or her daughter) were the only ones that really kept the conversation going. I wouldn’t really say that either of us stole the spotlight by talking the most because if we weren’t talking there were some really long silences. I think every time there was a lull in the conversations both of us were trying to find something to say to keep things going. As someone who considers herself an introvert, it was kind of mentally draining to think of something to say so often. Since there weren’t any discussion questions prepared we just brought up anything that we thought was worth talking about in the book. Big plot points, twists, and characters were discussed but it wasn’t really organized. I think if there were more people there to contribute or discussion questions were prepared then it would have gone a little bit smoother. 

This was the first book club that I had attended outside of work and it was really interesting to see how different it was. When I run our library’s book club I always start by asking everyone if they liked the book or hated it, then I jump into discussion questions. I use the discussion questions to jump start the conversations and if we keep talking without the discussion questions then that is great and I don’t even ask them. Our book club is in person but patrons have the option of attending over zoom as well. The people that attend in person always talk more than those who attend over zoom. If the in person people have been talking a lot I try to specifically ask about the opinions of those over zoom so that everyone has a chance to participate. While I don’t necessarily think that the book club group that I attended needs to be as organized as the library book club, I do think having someone to lead the discussion is beneficial. I was really excited to attend a more casual book club but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I think if this book club grows and everyone starts getting more comfortable with each other then the conversation will really start flowing more naturally.