2022.04.25 Meeting Notes

I think we hit and/or beat some records on Monday. We had 22 attendees, plus one Zoom attendee AND we basically got kicked out of the library when it closed – so we ran for 2 hours discussing the book, taking mug shot photos, and eating Allie’s cookies. Thanks for bringing the snack Allie! 
Speaking of snacks, Jay is on for May and Amy for June.
Before I go into the meeting minutes, a couple of announcements:
Next meeting: May 23 at 6:00 pm at the Lone Tree Library to discuss The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley. 
Murder Mystery at Kerry’s House June 4: if you haven’t let me know you’re interested, please do so by tomorrow. Final invites will be going out next week and characters will be assigned. 
Book Choices for Second Half of 2022: We will be voting via email in May for book choices for July-December. Put your suggestions in BookMovement so that they make the list. There’s a tab called Possible Club Selections and a button for Add Books. Add some Christmas books if you don’t want to read from Kerry’s classic mystery list. 
BookMovement: if you haven’t signed up, email me and let me know. I will send you an invite. We use this site for meeting reminders and book suggestions. 
Mug Shots: Jeff is putting your mug shots on our Wiki page and I will email them to each of you as a photo file, just in case you want them. They look awesome, thanks for playing along with me and thank you to Cindy for helping me set it up. 
Ok, on to the show. We had a g-r-e-a-t discussion of Karin Slaughter’s False Witness. May I start off by pointing out that there WAS dismemberment in this book (it was even suggestion that it should have been called Pieces of Him). We’re not sure who the false witness actually was, though. 
There have been lots of books that received differing scores, with one group giving it 9s and another 4s. This book also brought out very strong opinions and those who scored low and high were passionate about their reaction to the book. We even came up with an acronym to add to DNR (Did Not Read). We now have WNR (Would Not Recommend). 
I’ll go into each individual score below because I thought that there were so many great comments. I also want to say that this was one of the most interesting discussions I think we’ve had in a long time. Not just about the book, but how it was written and the subject matter. Many who scored very low were scoring based on the content and added their opinion that it was well written. We had quite a few people comment on parts of the story that were light and even humorous. We also had several people say that they raised their score after they came in and listened to the discussion (me included). It was an interesting evening. 
Before we get into the heavy comments, let’s start with Amy’s hilarious response to my comment. Kerry: Remember people, saran wrap is never a defense.Amy: That’s true, they’d see right through it.
The book received: three 9s, five 8s, four 7s, five 5s, three 4s, one 3, and one 2.
Click on a photo to enlarge.
 Janice (7) – the writing was great, it caused discomfort, it was topical.
Tara (7) – WNR to most people based on the subject, favorite scene was the cat carrier with the baby in it. 
 Kelly (8) – the author did a good job, it was dark, had to put it down at times.
 Branka (4) – it was beyond dark, disturbing, didn’t like the subject matter. 
 Sharon K (7) – liked Callie a lot, the book was well done, favorite scenes were all the ones with cats. 
 Jeff (9) – the best Karin Slaughter book yet, "it was fiction" and he could see past that and like the story, loved that it had dismemberment, machete scene was favorite (no surprise there). 
 Kerry (5) – came in as a 4 but raised it because of discussion, mainly didn’t like constant Covid references and the fact that the author seemed to google how to shoot up drugs and then proceed to write down a step-by-step lesson each time Callie needed a fix. 
 Amy (7) – needed a shower after reading, didn’t like the subject matter and drug use, good writing, made her feel feelings, favorite scene was Dr. Jerry at the end. 
 Heather (8) – reads a lot of Scandi Fiction and German mysteries so thought this was no darker than any other book she’s read and not shocking, thought the author did excellent research, was spot on with the veterinary medicine, there were light moments, favorite scene was Dr. Jerry. 
 Jay (8) – great book, dark, made him uncomfortable, wouldn’t want a sequel, felt immersed, has a newfound sympathy for drug addicts, it made him feel a lot, it was well written, great character development, favorite scene Dr. Jerry. 
 Allie (4) – struggled with it, really felt it should have had a trigger warning on the book jacket, was brutal and violent, writing was good, heart broke for Callie, favorite scene was when Callie attacked Andrew and fought back. 
 Jose (9) – memorable book, a lot of violence in the book but it was integral to the story (there’s a lot of violence in the world), it made him uncomfortable, great characters, favorite scene was Walter attacking the PI. 
 Julie (8) – it was well written, made her think about how you look at people and you just don’t know what their past is, drug use descriptions really made her feel for Callie. 
 Nicole (8) liked the book, writing was good, it was emotional at the end, really wanted Callie to live. 
 Teresa (5) – she was a weak stomach and this was very visual, still can’t get it out of her head, vivid, stopped reading and started listening to the audio book but that wasn’t better, had a hard time with it. 
 Cindy (5) – too much, wanted the author to be subtle and lead us there on the subject matter rather than making it so graphic, was glad we all had such a visceral reaction to the violence. 
 Marilyn (5) – too graphic, too much detail on the parts with children, good character development, author just put all the darkest stuff she knew of out there in the book. 
 Susan (5) – well written, too many graphic things, thought Leigh enabled Callie by rescuing her, her family had that exact steak knife when she was a kid (insert scared face here). 
 Chris (9) – like Jeff, she recognized it as a work of fiction, well written, these things happen in real life so thought it was an accurate representation. 
 Kim (2) – hated everything about the book except the fact that no animals died. 
 Gail (3) – it took her 2 .5 weeks to finish it (normally reads a book in a few days), hard to get through, great writer, didn’t care about the characters. 
 Christina (4) – didn’t like it but kept reading for club, raw and disturbing and graphic, liked some of the phrases (“his loyalty was as deep as his pockets”), commented that addicts are more than their addictions (well put).
I will close with the fact that I heard someone say that the Christmas Party quiz question was going to be one of the names of Callie’s cats. If you read the book, you’ll get the joke. Or is it a joke???
See you in May,
Kerry