That one member's 'skip the first 50 pages' advice wrecked our whole month

Last book club meeting, someone said to skip the first 50 pages of The Goldfinch because "nothing happens." I listened, and so did half the group. We all missed the car crash scene that sets up every character motivation later. By page 300, we were lost, and the discussion turned into people arguing over who Martin was. Turns out that person had only skimmed the book themselves. We're redoing the meeting next Tuesday, and I'm asking everyone to read the whole thing. Has anyone else had a member give shortcut advice that backfired this bad?

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holly_craig11d ago

Ugh, honestly I gotta disagree with the whole "skip 50 pages" idea in general. Like yeah, some books have slow starts, but you can't just delete a chunk and expect the rest to make sense, that's on whoever suggested it. At least y'all caught it early and are giving it another shot, better than forcing a whole meeting about a book half of you didn't even read.