Tuesday, November 18, 2008

All I Want for Christmas is Some Happy Pills for my Friends

I mentioned before that I've joined a book discussion group. Yay, books!

Anyway, the group has people of different ages and reading preferences (except we all signed up to read fiction). I would not think that this would pose a problem, but as it turns out, apparently some book lovers are an angry sort!

Most of the people in the group are a lot of fun to interact with. They seem like they’re having a good time, and even when they don’t like a book, they share their opinions freely without feeling a need to insult the people who did like the book.

Sounds sensible enough seeing as how we’re all adults.

But not everyone interacts this way.

So far, we have read three books as a group: The Red Tent, Twilight, and Water for Elephants. They’re all on very different subject matter.

Let’s take a look at the grumpies’ reactions to all three books.

Grumpy1: (On The Red Tent) Oh, I just hated it. I couldn’t stand it. *disgusted look on her face, no real discussion on what she didn’t like about it*

Grumpy1: (On Twilight) Oh, I just hated it. I couldn’t stand it. I don’t understand why grown women are crazy about this book. Grown ups shouldn’t read this book. This book is for children. I can’t see what the attraction is to the vampire. Especially THAT vampire. Any adult who reads this book and likes it is just crazy and has no taste. (nevermind that several of us had already said how much we liked it)

Grumpy1: (On Water for Elephants) Ugh! I hated this book. I just couldn’t stand it. I didn’t even bother to finish it because it was so terrible. OH, and people who like Twilight have no taste!

Grumpy2: *Missed the meeting for The Red Tent*

Grumpy2: (On Twilight) I hated this book. I couldn’t even finish it. *Wanders off during the discussion and disappears*

Grumpy2: (On Water for Elephants) I haven’t finished it, so don’t ruin the ending for me! (When asked what part she’s on so we’ll know what we can discuss) Oh, I’m actually, just at the part where the fire is. (There is no such fire in the book, but she’s only about 20 pages into the book, so she is assuming that the chaos that’s happening in the story is due to a fire. Oh, and that means we’re free to discuss the first 20 pages of the book! Great!)

Grumpy2: (When asked if she brought a book to recommend for next month’s pick) Oh, I had already left when you said to bring a book to recommend, so I didn’t know. (Wow, maybe if she hadn’t wandered off while we were all talking, she would have known!)

I actually picked the book for next month: The Girls by Lori Lansens. I can't wait to see the reaction to that one.

2 comments:

Mo said...

well, ya know what they say...some folks walk in the rain, and others just get wet.

Here's hoping the next selection can garner some positive feed back from the grumps! (but, I wouldn't expect it; The best prediction of future behavior is past behavior, ya know! lol)

Lisa said...

Yikes, that doesn't even sound like fun!