Book Club Report: What We Thought of the Queen's Thief series and other books

Last night my book club got together for the first time since our summer break. We had lots to talk about! In fact, I even had a schedule which we sort of, not really, a little bit, followed!

Here's some of our random thoughts about the different books we discussed:


The Passage (a few of us read this over the summer, those that wanted to came a little early to discuss it.)

• Some thought it was slow moving in parts.
• Some even skimmed the end to hurry and it over with!
• Some are pretty creeped out by the realistic bad guys.
• "It's way too long!" say some.
• "Did you know it's a trilogy?" I said. "NO WAY!" pretty much they all said.

The Queen's Thief series (yes all four books to date)

• I was surprised at how many ended up not liking the series much at all.
• Many felt it was way too political.
• Many felt there was too much geographical description.
• A few felt betrayed in the first book, given the big reveal at the end and that it was written in first person.
• Some found the character development interesting. How you could love and hate a character at the same time, and how your whole perception of certain characters changed over the course of the series.
• We had a small discussion on how to pronounce Eugenides (soft G vs. hard G.) 
• Pretty much everyone agreed that Megan Whalen Turner has a unique writing style. We talked a bit about her use of the "show don't tell" technique.
• Everyone mentioned their favorite of the series, and it was different all around!
• Several agreed that the Newbery Honor awarded to The Thief was well deserved.
• We all wondered how many more books are left to come in the series. Anyone know?

Mockingjay

• The question "did you like it?" was alway followed by a long pause before answering.
• Were the books about just Katniss? Katniss and the boys? Katniss and The Capitol? Or the Capitol? Once that question is answered, you can decide if the ending of the book resolved who or whatever the main problem was.
• She (as in Suzanne Collins) was ruthless with some of our favorite characters!
• One of the main surprises in this book, many saw it coming! (Ha, but not me!)
• Overall feeling was that it was a little bit of a let down after the excitement of the other two books, but most people still liked and enjoyed it.

Book club people, if you are reading this, did I understand our discussions correctly? Feel free to add comments to clarify my perceptions!

Some other books that book club members read over the summer are:

• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George
• The Duff by Kody Keplinger
• Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
• The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty
• The Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

We originally had planned to read The Wizard of Earthsea for our next discussion, but we made a change in favor of reading Matched by Ally Condie instead. That's because our next meeting falls on the day she will be coming to our local library, so we plan to go and hear her presentation, then stay and have our discussion there at the library.  Between us, we have three ARCs of Matched, so the plan is to pass them around and hope everyone has a chance at it. Sound fun? I should think so!!