Loading…
10
TIL my book club was right to skip the prologue, and I hated admitting it
I've argued for 2 years at our Tuesday meetup in Kalamazoo that skipping a book's prologue is a crime, and I always read every word out loud to the group just to prove my point. Last week we did a thriller where the prologue gave away the whole twist, and when I finished reading it, Dana just looked at me and asked what was left to figure out. So I tried it her way on the next pick, read chapter one cold, and the first reveal actually hit me because I didn't know it was coming. Now I'm wondering if I've been ruining books for our whole club this entire time. How do you all decide when a prologue is worth reading versus just spoiler bait?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
owens.cameron9d ago
Heck, I do the old flip test. If the prologue reads like a chapter, story already moving and people doing things, I read it. If it's just setting mood or some voice from the past hinting at secrets, I skip it and circle back after chapter three. Nine times out of ten the book tells you what you needed anyway, and you get the fun of putting it together yourself. I learned that the hard way with a mystery last spring where the prologue flat out named the killer. Skipped it on a reread and the thing actually worked.
5