5 Writing/Marketing Lessons Learned from a Book Club's reaction to 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle:

Recently, I joined an in person book club purely for research purposes. I wanted to know, truly, how a reader works and thinks. This book club is made up mostly of Moms and young women (Millenials and Gen Xers if I had to guess; maybe one Gen Zer). It sounds like an off shoot from a church, but the books on the list are not Christian fiction. We met for one hour in a person's home. Here's what I learned from their reactions (this month)

1. Follow the rules of your own world (In this case, many felt the end broke the rules of the universe the author built too easily)

2. Don't make it so hard for the reader that they give up reading (1/2 the club didn't finish the book and the others who read it were very confused). In that same vein, some felt the nearly 500 pages was too much.

3. Make sure your ending feels satisfying (those who finished wondered what the point of the novel was. It felt like a waste of time). They agreed that even if it was tragic, if they felt like there was a point, they would've liked it more. Some sort of resolution is what they wished.

4. The only thing they agreed on is that because the book was so unique and caused great emotional reaction, it was a good book to talk about and discuss for book club.

5. The process for choosing books seems more based on the NY Times List, bestseller list, or the top Goodreads picks (more evidence those emails from supposed Book Clubs are a scam)

I really enjoyed being there and hearing everyone talk about the book. It was worth going to, even if it is reading completely different genres.