Sometimes the Most Fun Book Club Discussions Start with "I Hated It"

This is post two of More Than The Book, our series on everything a book club gives you beyond the books themselves. Catch up on post one, The Best Book Club Conversations Don't Always Start with the Best Books, if you missed it.

Every book club has had a meeting where someone opens with "I'll be honest, I couldn't stand it" – and it turns out to be one of the best nights of the year. Not despite the disagreement. Because of it. As a host, I've learned to spot these nights within the first ten minutes, and they're always my favourite ones to run.

Disagreement Is Where the Good Stuff Happens

A book everyone quietly enjoyed tends to produce a short, pleasant, forgettable chat. A book that splits the room produces the opposite; people leaning in, building a case, genuinely trying to convince each other. As a host, I can spot these nights within ten minutes: I do a lap of the tables partway through the evening, and on the best ones, every table is deep in fierce debate, howling with laughter, or both.

I felt it from the other side too as a member. One of my favourite Romantasy reads came up as a pick recently to fairly average ratings, and I loved every second of defending it, debating the tropes people took issue with, trying to win a few round, and picking up some genuinely good food for thought along the way.

"Bad" Books Are Often the Most Memorable

Ask a group of members to name their most talked-about book club pick, and it's rarely the one everyone rated five stars. It's the one that annoyed someone, confused someone else, and had a third person defending it to the death.

A love story with a book isn't nearly as interesting to tell as a complicated one.

I still have members bring up a "controversial" pick from months ago purely because of the row it caused at one table; it has become a running conversation.

Someone Else's Perspective Can Change Your Whole Read

This is the part people don't expect: hearing why someone else hated (or loved) a book can genuinely change how you feel about it, sometimes hours after you'd already decided you were finished with it.

That shift doesn't happen when you read alone. It only happens because someone in the room saw it completely differently to you. I've walked away from more than one meeting thinking I need to go home and reread the last few chapters with fresh eyes.

I've Started Caring More About Their Rating Than My Own

If I'm honest, this is the bit that's crept up on me the most. I've become genuinely more invested in what my fellow members think of a book than in what I think of it myself. The person who gave last month's pick two stars, and spent a good twenty minutes telling us exactly why, is the person I'm now desperate to hear from this month. Did this one win them round, or are we getting another passionate takedown?

I find myself far more curious about their verdict than my own. Somewhere along the way it stopped being about my personal reading list and started being about following everyone else's, one opinionated review at a time; and honestly, that's become one of my favourite parts of the whole thing.

Not Every Book Has to Be a Five-Star Read

It's easy to treat a lukewarm read as a wasted month. It rarely is. A book doesn't need to be loved to be worth discussing; it just needs to give the group something to talk about.

Some of the most useful book club picks are the ones that are good enough to finish and divisive enough to argue over. Honestly, some of the nights I'm proudest of as a host are the ones built entirely around a three-star book nobody could agree on.

Final Thoughts

If you left your last book club meeting thinking "well, that one wasn't for me," it's worth asking what the discussion was actually like. More often than not, it was one of the better ones. As a host, they're certainly the meetings I remember most fondly.

What's the book club pick you disagreed with everyone else about, and did the discussion change your mind?

Next in the series: why the books you'd never pick yourself often turn out to be your favourites. Read on in Your Next Favourite Book Probably Isn't One You'd Pick Yourself.

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Written by: Anita, Host & Freelance C25 Admin Co-Ordinator

Anita will read anything she can get her hands on, with a soft spot for fantasy and Japanese fiction. Joining the Chapter 25 family in 2025 as the host of the Bury St Edmunds Club gave her love of reading a whole new lease of life. You'll find her in the garden with a book or down a BookTok rabbit hole looking for her next read.