2023.04.24 Meeting Notes

First things first, I wanted to let everyone know that we’ve decided that we will NO longer have the virtual option to attend book club when the club is in person. We find that it’s very hard for 1 or 2 people on a Zoom to be able to hear and/or interact with the club when the rest are in person. Many times, no one shows up on Zoom anyway, after our librarians spend all their time setting up the monitor and speaker. For such a large group, a hybrid approach just doesn’t seem to work very well.
So, from now on, we will only meet in person except for the 1x a year virtual event. I still do think that it’s nice to mix it up and meet once a year on Zoom. For that meeting we will ALL be on Zoom, and it allows our out of towners to join in if they want.
We welcomed Perry and Claudia to the group. You’ve both been send a BookMovement invitation. We use this website for book suggestions and meeting reminders. You never need to RSVP when it asks you to because I don’t see those responses.
Now on to the April meeting. We had a very heated discussion of The It Girl by Ruth Ware. It was no surprise, poor Ruthie has been a hot topic since we started to choose her books. Sometimes they go over well, sometimes not so well, but what we can count on every time...is that Amy won’t like them. Heehee, it’s funny cause it’s true.
The scores were: five 8s, three 7s, four 6s, five 5s, three 4s, three 3s, and one 2. That’s an average score of 5.54 (the only time you will see me use fractions - or decimals to be more accurate). Not such a great score. The 8s did not seem to outweigh the 2s, 3s, and 4s.
Some of the things we liked about the book were: the ending had a good twist (how she wasn’t really dead when they found the body), we liked the back and forth from current day to the past, and we always like a book that takes place in Oxford. Oh yeah, and we liked the shooting at the end - although this came from Sharon K, who only gave it a 5, so I suspect it was the only thing she liked, lol.
Some of the things we didn’t like: it was too long, it was hard to believe the premise, nothing ever happened, Hannah was a dumb character and we didn’t like how she turned on Will, it was predictable.
What both sides seemed to agree on: it was too long (and for no good reason). It was even suggested that the author shouldn’t write such a long book that we have time to hate all the characters. That one was Allie.
Many of you know that I am going to the Agatha Christie Festival in England this September and I just found out that Ruthie is going to be there. She’s opening the event with Robert Thorogood (creator of Death in Paradise). Amy, if you give me all of your books, I will get them autographed for you.
I’m looking forward to reading the May book, The Retreat by Sarah Pearse. I’m going to re-read The Sanatorium first, because I know there is a thread that continues. I’ve been waiting because it’s been so fun to look forward to it. That way it’ll also be fresh in my mind for the discussion.
I have Jay down for bringing a snack.
See everyone on May 22. DON’T BE FOOLED – there are 5 Mondays in May and we meet on the 4th one, not the last one.
Kerry