2020.03.23 Meeting Notes

Hello Mystery Lovers,
I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe during our continued quarantine. I'm sure not everyone is loving it as much as I am. My inner hermit is doing a happy dance and I have no kids bugging me, so this is heaven. I know we will go back out into the world at some point, so I am going to enjoy it while I can.
I was shocked and thrilled in equal measures that the Zoom meeting book club went so well this month. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, so I only invited our core, mostly in state, members to the group. We had 16 people log in to discuss The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and it went great!
We had so much fun that we even talked about doing it once in awhile when the library can’t accommodate a change in our meeting date (when our club meeting falls on a holiday, we try to meet a week earlier and they can’t always give us the room). I personally want to do it when I am on vacation during a meeting, but since Jeff frequently points out that I am not allowed to travel on the 4th Monday, that would never come up so I don’t even know why I mentioned it.
I would like to extend the invite to the April 27 meeting to discuss The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz to ALL who are on this email list. If you’ve moved out of state and still follow us, log in and join us for the meeting. We’d love to have you! The Zoom meeting info will be sent in the next couple of days and then I’ll send it again right before the meeting for people who, like me, lose things in their inbox.
Now on to the reviews of The Silent Patient. This was a great book and it got awesome scores. We saw eight 9s, two 8.5s, and seven 8s. No, I didn’t stop recording scores – there were NO scores lower than an 8. It was THAT good.
The book had been out for over a year before we read it and it's amazing that no one seemed to have heard any spoilers. Most of us didn’t figure out the twist, and those that did seemed to have figured it out just before it was revealed. The author, in an interview, talked about his childhood in Cyprus. When he was out of school in the summer, he spent his time devouring Agatha Christie books. Greek mythology was very much a part of life for him also, so he combined Agatha Christie (specifically Five Little Pigs where the story took place years after the crime was committed) and Greek mythology. What we got was one of the best psychological thrillers we’ve ever read in club.
Some of the positive comments: couldn’t put it down, didn’t figure it out, unpredictable, and a true psychological thriller. The end caught many of us off guard and we had to rework our brain around the fact that Theo following his cheating wife wasn’t in the present tense like we thought. 
We could all see it as a movie and in fact, this was reported: “After teaming up on this year's Oscar winners Vice and If Beale Street Could Talk, Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures and Brad Pitt's Plan B are bringing an adaption of the twisty best-selling novel The Silent Patient to the big screen.”
I think we were all expecting a twist of some sort (based on the reviews the book got) but many of us expected a different twist that was delivered. Some were looking for a Shutter Island story where Theo turned out to be the patient rather than a doctor, but others were leaning toward a Sixth Sense type of twist. Probably two of the best twists EVER written. We came to the conclusion, however, that it could be argued that there wasn’t a twist at all. We were merely not seeing the whole picture of what was going on.
I found it interesting that some people commented that they didn’t like Theo, but others pointed out that they liked him. I think this shows the author did a great job of creating a character that could be seen in more than one light.
There were no negative comments about the book. I’ll give you a minute to let that sink in.
This was Kelly and Jose’s first audio book ever, and I think they are now going to be hooked (insert evil laughter here). I always listen to the books when I can and this was a great narrator.
All of the new books through December have been added to the BookMovement site. That will still send you automatic reminders if you have created a log in. If you haven’t, and want to, please contact me.
Next month we will discuss The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz. I will lead and you all need to get your own snacks because it'll be another Zoom meeting. Per above, I'll send out the link soon.
Once the quarantine is over and the libraries reopen, I will send out a call for volunteers. If you'd like to lead the discussion of a specific book, let me know. Otherwise I will just ask for volunteers to bring snacks.
P.S. I've attached some Crossword Puzzles and Word Search Puzzles that the NY Public Library gave away for free to keep people busy and thinking about books while quarantined. Have fun!
2020-crossword-nypl-adaptations.png
2020-crossword-nypl-finish-the-title.png
2020-crossword-nypl-name-the-author.png
2020-crossword-nypl-opposites.png
2020-wordsearch-nypl-hungry-caterpillar.png
Word Search - Cat in the Hat Plays With.png