TIL the hard way: never let the book club pick a debut novel for a potluck meeting

We had our monthly book club meeting at Maria's place last Friday. I was in charge of snacks. Everybody raved about this debut novel set in a fancy restaurant kitchen. Figured I'd go all out with some fancy appetizers from the actual recipes mentioned in the book. Spent 40 bucks on ingredients and 3 hours prepping. Nobody read past chapter 5. Turns out half the group hated the writing and just skimmed it. So there I was with a bunch of cold crab puffs and zero discussion. Has anyone else gotten burned by a book that looked good on paper but nobody actually finished?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_taylor1mo ago

That's rough, buddy. 40 bucks on crab puffs is a real gut punch when nobody even wants to talk about why the main character keeps burning the bearnaise sauce. The problem with debut novels in a book club is that you're basically gambling on a writer who might not know how to keep a reader's attention past the first few chapters. A potluck setting makes it ten times worse because you're adding pressure to impress with food that matches the theme. Next time, maybe stick with a well-worn classic or a nonfiction book where at least the snacks only need to be passable. Or better yet, let the person with the most to lose pick the book and tell everyone else to bring chips.

daniel1401mo ago

Yeah, gambling on a debut is basically playing book club roulette with your snack budget.

evan_green521mo ago

Book club roulette" is a good way to put it @daniel140, kind of like how everyone avoids the mystery flavor at potlucks.