Question about that tip to always start book club debates with a vote...

My friend Sarah swore that taking a quick vote before any discussion would set clear expectations. I tried it with our group's pick of "The Road" and 8 out of 10 people voted it was depressing, which just killed the whole debate vibe. Has anyone else found voting backfires or am I doing it wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

daniel47425d ago

Different groups are different @mark_mitchell but for me the vote just opens the door for real talk instead of people guessing.

carter.gavin17d ago

Voting before discussion worked great for my group but we set it up different. Instead of asking if the book was depressing or whatever we voted on one specific thing like "who was the real villain" or "did the ending make sense." That way people had a specific angle to argue about rather than just agreeing the book made them feel a certain way. For "The Road" we voted on whether the boy would survive on his own and that got people debating for like an hour... everybody had a different take on it.

mark_mitchell25d ago

Oh yeah that happened to us too with a thriller book once, totally flopped the whole discussion.