Why I’ve Never Joined A Book Club

Howdy!

Today’s post is going to be a little interesting as it’s something that I’ve never discussed. You have a group of people who are interested in usually the same genres as you, or they could differ with each month or whatever, and after you’ve finished reading, you all get together and discuss what you thought about it. I think that’s a wonderful thing to do!

I’ve watched The Jane Austen Book Club a few months ago and really enjoyed seeing the lives of these women (and one random dude) get closer and unfold as they read all six of her novels. I am looking forward to seeing Book Club with Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, and Mary Steenburgen when it comes out on DVD. They’re reading Fifty Shades of Grey and that just cracks me up! I’ve also found a book that also talks about it too, called The Accidental Book Club by Jennifer Scott. It’s been on my TBR list forever!

Funnily enough though, I’ve never joined a book club in my life. They always seem like a cool thing, but I have way too many issues to be able to do it. whether the excuse is my disability or can’t afford the book(s) itself.

I remember a time when I was a kid, once school was out, my mom and nana tried to get Blondie and I interested in reading, so they would sign us up for the library’s summer reading program. I absolutely hated it! I would constantly lose my place and stumble on my words, I’ll be honest, reading was my worst enemy. Once I started my freshman year though, something changed where I was allowed to read silently to myself. There were times when I had to read aloud in class, but thankfully it was mainly when we were attempting to read Shakespeare. The whole class was having trouble, it was just us who had issues with reading in general!

I don’t know if this counts, but I did take a class during my junior year of high school, called “Novels” and the teacher picked out four books for us to read, but I’ve also believed there was five, I just can’t remember it! The novels were: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Silas Marner by George Eliot, Night by Elie Wiesel, and Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. This class was only a semester and no, I didn’t have the class around Halloween, the creepy tones just happened by accident I think!

That’s the only “club” that I can say I’ve ever been in, but in a way you were forced to take the class if you need one or two English classes to build up credits, so even though the class itself was fun and everything, it was too structured. It wasn’t the teacher’s fault, he was awesome and he made it fun for us. They had an actual book club, but it was during lunch period and as much as I really wanted to participate, I just never had the guts to do it.

Now you’re probably wondering if I’ve ever thought about creating my own club. Well, honestly I’ve never given it any thought about it because who would join it? Besides it would have to be hosted online because I have no other option. I also don’t know about the various genres, because honestly I like only a select few and unfortunately not a lot of people enjoy them.

What about you, have you ever joined a book club before? If you have, what was your experience with it? Did you enjoy it as much as you thought you would?