That book club debate about unreliable narrators took us 3 meetings to settle

My group spent two whole months arguing over whether the narrator in "The Girl on the Train" was just messy or actually intentionally twisting the story. I was on the side that she was just drunk and wrong, but half the group swore she was lying on purpose. We ended up going through the first six chapters line by line at our second meeting and still couldn't agree. By the third meetup, our host pulled up a podcast analysis that basically said the book leaves it open on purpose. Kind of killed the fun when we realized the author probably didn't even pick a side. Has anyone else had a debate drag on way longer than the book deserved?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixm292d ago

That podcast basically proved the author was playing both sides which kinda ruined the mystery.

josephbailey2d ago

Oh man, that's such a bummer! My buddy Kyle listened to it on his drive to work and called me all frustrated. He was super into the whole mystery angle and said the author straight up admitted in episode 3 that he didn't really know where he was going with the plot at first. Kyle just sat in his parked car for like ten minutes after it ended, just staring at the dashboard.

charles7202d ago

Man people take this stuff way too seriously sometimes. Kyle sitting in his car staring at the dashboard for ten minutes over a podcast? That's a bit much isn't it. It's just a show, not like the author killed his dog or something. So the guy admitted he was making it up as he went along, big deal. Half the podcasts and shows I've ever listened to probably started that way, they just don't say it out loud. Seems like folks are looking for a reason to be mad more than anything.