Our club spent $400 on a 'guided discussion package' for our last book... and it was a total bust.

We picked a new historical fiction novel and wanted to try something different, so we bought this online kit from a book discussion site. It promised deep questions, author background, and themed snack ideas. For $400, we got a 15-page PDF with questions you could find on any free blog and a list of basic facts from Wikipedia. The 'exclusive author interview' was just a recycled podcast clip from two years ago. Half our group felt totally ripped off and said we should have just made our own questions. The other half argued that at least it saved our moderator some prep time, even if it was overpriced. I'm still annoyed we wasted our club's fund money on it. Has anyone else bought a book club guide that was actually worth the cost?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese_thompson746h ago

Ouch, that's rough... four hundred bucks for a glorified Google search. My old club once pooled cash for a fancy "curated experience" box. It had questions about themes that weren't even in the book... and the "artisan" cookies were just stale ginger snaps from a bulk store. Felt like we paid to be someone's homework assignment. Never went the paid guide route again after that.

calebh905h ago

That's a real shame your group had that experience, reese_thompson74. It sounds like you paid for a box of buzzwords instead of a real book talk. A good guide should feel like a smart friend who read the book closely, not a college student padding an essay. The cookie thing is just insulting, really. It makes you wonder if the person making it even liked the book, or just saw a quick way to make some cash.