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Cold reading the ending of 'The Road' broke our book club for good
Last month at the Elm Street library we had our annual 'hottest take' night where everyone argues their unpopular opinion. I said the ending of The Road was too neat and happy for such a brutal book. Three people walked out and one lady told me I missed the entire point of hope. Now the group has a new rule that you can't pick apart classic endings. Has anyone else's book club nearly split over a single chapter?
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shane_hayes10d ago
Laughing out loud at the idea of three people walking out over that take. I mean, its a book club not a hostage situation. If someone storming off over a fictional ending breaks the whole group, it was probably gonna fall apart over something else anyway. The whole 'hope' thing is fine, but acting like McCarthy wrote some fairy tale just feels like ignoring the part where the kid is literally staring at a dead world with no guarantee anything after that final scene works out.
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alicecraig10d ago
We started making everyone write down their reaction before anyone could speak, that way people had to sit with their own feelings first. It didn't stop the arguments but it made them less personal and more about the book itself. Sometimes the best way to keep a club together is to force a little quiet before the storm hits.
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