Changed my mind about skipping character backstories in book club reads

Last Tuesday at the library, I argued against reading the prequel chapter for our current novel, but after listening to Jenny share how the author's hidden backstory changed her whole view of the plot, I admitted I was wrong and now I'm the one pushing everyone to start with the character notes.

3 comments

3 Comments

charles67823d ago

Gotta ask though, what exactly did Jenny say that flipped you so hard on this? Was it one specific detail about a character's childhood or something about the author's own life bleeding into the story? I'm curious because I've been in that spot where someone drops a fact that just rewires the whole book for me, like finding out the villain in Gone Girl was based on a real person the author knew. What was the thing that hit you hardest?

abby_robinson5823d ago

It was actually something I read in an interview with the author a few years ago, not even from Jenny. She mentioned the main character's fear of the dark came from her own childhood after her dad locked her in a closet as punishment. That detail just hit me hard because the book keeps hinting at something bad in the character's past but never says it outright. Made me see the whole story as less about monsters and more about real trauma, which changed how I viewed the ending. @charles678, totally get what you mean about that Gone Girl thing too, it's wild how a small fact can rewrite the entire book in your head.

ninabutler21d ago

Hang on, I gotta push back a little because I think everyone is missing something BIG here. Nobody's talking about how the book itself is WRITTEN. The prose gets all fragmented and choppy in those dark scenes, like the sentences are literally falling apart. That's not just a style choice, that's the author's own brain shutting down on the page because she's reliving that trauma. I noticed it on my third reread and it hit me like a truck. It's almost like the STRUCTURE of the book is a warning, not just the story. We're so busy looking at what the characters do that we forget to look at HOW the writer is telling us.