Can we talk about how my book club spent 90 minutes arguing over whether the main character was actually a ghost

We had to vote with post-it notes and everything, and the girl who swore she was alive brought a printed spreadsheet of clues from chapter 3 - has anyone else had a debate get this out of hand over something so simple?

3 comments

3 Comments

troyc171d ago

Seriously she brought a spreadsheet to a book club? That's wild. But here's the thing nobody is asking - maybe the real question is why everyone automatically assumes "ghost" or "alive" are the only two options. What if the author wrote her as some kind of memory or dream that the other characters just collectively agreed to pretend was real the whole time.

zaranelson1d ago

Is that not kind of like saying the whole book was a group hallucination though? I mean sure, it's a clever angle, but you'd need some solid evidence in the actual text to back that up, not just a hunch. Sometimes the simplest answer, like she was alive the whole time, is actually the right one.

jennybailey1d ago

That "collectively agreed to pretend" part got me thinking about something weird that happened at my old job. We had this receptionist named Carol who everyone thought was super nice and always brought in donuts on Fridays. Turned out after six months nobody had actually seen her leave the building, just always saw her at her desk. HR eventually figured out she'd quit three months earlier and her sister had been filling in without telling anyone. The sister didn't even work there, she just showed up because Carol told her it was an easy gig. So yeah, groups can totally just go along with something if everyone assumes everyone else knows what's going on. Not saying your book theory is wrong, but sometimes real life is weirder than fiction.