Serious question, did my book club pick a 600 page book just to avoid talking about the last one?
We met at Dana's place on Sunday and she put 14 sticky notes on her copy of the new pick while everyone else stayed quiet about the 3 people who never finished the old one. I finally said maybe we should talk about why half the group dropped the last book before adding another big one, and you could hear a pin drop. Turns out 4 people hated it and just didn't want to say so in front of the person who chose it. Do your clubs have a rule for when nobody liked the pick, or do you just let it slide?
What is it with book clubs and not wanting to hurt the picker's feelings? My old group had this whole thing where the person who picked would just sit there while everyone else did the "well, I didn't finish it but I'm sure the ending was great" dance. One time a lady brought an actual pie chart of how many pages each of us had read, and the picker saw she was the only slice at 100 percent and just about walked out. We ended up adding a rule where anyone can call a "no guilt swap" at the two week mark, and it saved the club because people stopped faking it.