My book club keeps arguing about the wrong chapters

We spent 40 minutes last Tuesday debating the ending of a novel when two members admitted they skipped the middle, so we had to redo the whole discussion. I started asking everyone to bring one quote from chapters 5-8 before we move to the big themes, and it cut our useless tangents in half. The problem is people walk in having read the first and last 20 pages, then guess the rest, and that poisons the debate. I know because we compared notes one week and three of us described the same character completely differently based on what we skimmed. Has anyone else tried a mid-book checkpoint, or do you just let the group wing it and hope for the best?

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1 Comment

mason.mark1mo ago

That's such a common problem, and honestly your quote check idea sounds like a fair way to keep everyone honest.