In today's post, regular contributor Denise Neary shares a book club "bad fit". We've all experienced these I think. For me it was a woman who came to my independently owned bookstore/cafe bookclub carrying a Starbucks and a library book. Weird, right? Denise's "character" is also a bit weird. Gotta love 'em AND leave 'em!
Help! Did you ever have a book club member who NEVER read the books?
I am not talking about the occasional “I didn’t like it,” “I didn’t get to it” or “you would not believe my month.” That happens to every book club member---for a variety of reasons, reading the book just didn’t happen that month.
This is something entirely different.
We had one member who would relate every book discussion to something she had seen on television recently. Elizabeth Bennett would bring to mind a CSI episode, Jane Eyre would kind of remind her of Liz Lemon. She was funny, smart, nice----apparently, just not a reader.
It was hilarious for a while---lots of skeptical glances and eyebrow raising when a TV show was named--but the group started to get fed up. If she didn’t want to read the books, or at least the first and last chapters and do some book research (hello, bookreporter!) why was she coming?
As it turns out, I didn’t have to confront our non-reader. For several reasons (maybe the premiere of the new fall television season) this woman decided to drop the group. She did say she hadn’t expected there would be so much reading required. (Huh? Really??) As break-ups go however, it was a good one; we are all still friends.
Have you ever had to break up with a book club member? Please tell us how….and why.
-- Denise Neary, Regular Contributor
