My book club thought the main character was a ghost for six whole months

We've been reading 'The Midnight Library' and at our meeting in March, someone mentioned how sad it was that Nora was dead the whole time. I agreed, and we spent the next few sessions talking about the book as a ghost story. The tip-off came last week when a new member, Sarah, quietly asked, 'But isn't she in a coma between life and death? The library is a metaphor.' I had to go back and re-read the first chapter, and sure enough, it's a near-death experience, not an afterlife. We'd built our entire debate on a wrong idea. Has your club ever completely misunderstood a book's basic plot?

2 comments

2 Comments

nguyen.dylan20d ago

Remember reading about a book club that spent months analyzing a romance novel as a deep critique of capitalism because they missed the sarcasm in the opening line. It's so easy to lock onto one idea like @fisher.kevin said. I mean, your Midnight Library mix-up makes total sense, the whole setup does feel super ghostly before you get what's really going on.

fisher.kevin21d ago

My buddy's group read a mystery novel convinced the butler did it. They spent weeks picking apart his alibi only to find out he was a red herring introduced in chapter two. Sometimes you just get a detail stuck in your head and run with it.