Three years of book club and I just realized I was reading the wrong edition

Last night at my monthly meetup at the Corner Cafe, everyone was talking about a character named Marcia who I had ZERO memory of from our book pick. Turned out I accidentally bought the abridged version instead of the full novel, so I missed all the subplots. Has anyone else had a mixup like this that made them feel totally clueless during the discussion?

2 comments

2 Comments

karen4109d ago

Three years is rough, oh man. I did something similar with a classic sci-fi book for a buddy's reading group last year, got the young reader adaptation instead of the real novel somehow. Felt like a complete dope when everyone was debating the deep themes and I was like "wait I thought that part was just a simple spaceship ride". Sarah's Murakami story makes me feel a little better lol, at least your mixup was just abridged and not a whole different language interpretation. But seriously it's wild how easy it is to grab the wrong version when they package them so similarly these days. Hope your group gave you a pass and you can now go back and read the full thing to catch up on Marcia's deal.

sarahpatel9d ago

Ugh, I've heard about that happening to people... I actually saw a post on BookTok where someone went the whole book club year with the wrong translation of a Murakami novel and every meeting they were all confused about the plot.