{"id":872,"date":"2011-03-31T14:49:12","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T18:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=872"},"modified":"2011-03-31T14:49:12","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T18:49:12","slug":"the-rowdy-book-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/miscellaneous\/the-rowdy-book-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rowdy Book Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past year since Birthmarked<\/em> came out, I\u2019ve talked to twelve book groups (two via Skype) about the novel, and I\u2019m meeting a week from today with another book group, a group of teens, at my old high school in St. Paul, Minnesota.\u00a0 That should be cool.<\/p>\n

\"\"

I'll be Skyping with the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School Book Club in Duluth, MN soon.<\/p><\/div>\n

Talking to a book group is a curious experience for me, especially when the people are all friends already.\u00a0 Some of the groups have shared history that goes back years.\u00a0 One group formed when swimmer parents, who had spent hours poolside cheering on each other\u2019s kids, no longer had swim meets to go to and decided to keep their friendships going around books.\u00a0 Other groups have formed around moms whose toddlers play together, or after school with a teacher or librarian, or through a library.\u00a0 One was composed of mother-daughter teams.\u00a0 The teen groups have had boys and girls, while in the adult groups I\u2019ve visited, men are rare but they sure speak up.<\/p>\n

After welcoming hellos, some visiting, and often some refreshments, there invariable comes a moment when we all sit down to discuss Gaia\u2019s story, and that\u2019s when I never know what\u2019s going to happen.\u00a0 Sometimes no one has any questions, so I launch into stories about how I came up with the first idea for the story, how I found a publisher, and how the story originally had a different ending.\u00a0 Other times the hostess has a whole list of really thoughtful questions or someone moans about Leon and we jump right into pondering the story.\u00a0 Some groups get sort of rowdy, with bursts of conversations taking off between people all at the same time so we have to call order and take turns.\u00a0 Actually, come to think of it, even the most polite groups have had a rowdy element.\u00a0 Fortunately.<\/p>\n

We head off on tangents about the medical system in our country, or poverty, or absent parents, or whether school sets you free or imprisons you, or whether you\u2019d rather risk having to give up your kids for adoption or risk being infertile.\u00a0 We talk about people with hemophilia, and kids with special needs, and whether Gaia is too sensitive about her scar. We talk about beauty, and why girls today are still judged for their appearance.\u00a0 We talk about violence in young adult books, and if that\u2019s okay.\u00a0 (It is.)<\/p>\n

Eventually, people want to know about the sequel, and then, even though of course I know they haven\u2019t read the second book, it\u2019s still odd to me that they don\u2019t know what happens.\u00a0 To me, there\u2019s no longer a clear line between Book 1 and Book 2\u2014they\u2019re a continuation of the same project. \u00a0What comes next<\/a> just seems logical to me, though I can\u2019t outline that here without the risk of spoiling the end of Birthmarked<\/em> for people who haven\u2019t read it yet.\u00a0 I listen to people\u2019s predictions, and I think, Yes, that\u2019s good.\u00a0 They\u2019ll like what I do with that. <\/em> Or Woops, they\u2019re not going to like how that turns out<\/em>. \u00a0Or Wow, they\u2019re going to be surprised<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I end up wanting to jump forward a year to have another conversation with the same people.\u00a0 Most of all, I feel thankful that my story has found its way into the right hands.\u00a0 Long live the book group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past year since Birthmarked came out, I\u2019ve talked to twelve book groups (two via Skype) about the novel, and I\u2019m meeting a week from today with another book group, a group of teens, at my old high school in St. Paul, Minnesota.\u00a0 That should be cool. Talking to a book group is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}