Our book club picked a 900 page novel and it wrecked us

Last fall my group decided to be ambitious and chose "The Power Broker" for our monthly book. I had a buddy tell me beforehand that anything over 600 pages was a death sentence for a monthly book club. I figured he was just being dramatic since we all read pretty fast. By week two only 3 out of 10 of us had made it past page 200. The meeting turned into an hour of people apologizing for not finishing and then we just talked about the first 100 pages over and over. It was a total flop and my friend was 100% right. Has anyone else had a book that was just too long for a monthly schedule to work?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai_brown237d ago

Did you guys try splitting the book across two meetings or did you just scrap it entirely after that first disaster? In my experience, even the most ambitious readers hit a wall around page 300 for a month-long schedule, especially with non-fiction. Just curious if you think a longer timeline would've saved it or if the size alone was the killer.

kim_martin7d ago

Yeah splitting it saved us. Two months worked way better.