Book club member called me out for not reading the ending right

At our last meeting, Jen said I missed the point about the dog dying in chapter 19, and she was right. I've been skimming conclusions for years, now I force myself to read the last 10 pages out loud before meeting. Anyone else gotten called out for a wrong take?

2 comments

2 Comments

wrenh793d ago

Wait so you've been SKIMMING endings for YEARS? How do you even know if you LIKED a book if you don't know how it ends? That's wild to me because the ending is literally the whole point of reading. Jen was right to call you out, that's what book clubs are for. But I'm curious - did you just guess at the ending and pretend you knew? Or did you tell people you finished it and hoped they wouldn't ask details? I gotta know how deep this skimming habit really went.

robinmason3d ago

Nah, endings are actually the least interesting part of a book for me. The journey is what matters, not the destination. You can get a feel for where things are going just from the characters and the middle sections, so the final chapter rarely surprises me anyway. I've guessed endings correctly plenty of times because most books follow predictable patterns. If someone asks me about a book, I talk about the parts that stuck with me, the characters I cared about, or the scenes that made me think. Nobody has ever called me out on not knowing the exact ending because the conversation is always about the story itself, not some final twist. Book clubs are for discussing ideas, not quizzing each other on plot details.