STACY OAKSHEAF | City News | CONTACT
Shocking reports have rolled in over the weekend as it turns out that 87% of Betoota’s local Book Club meetups have been dedicated exclusively to the literary art of spilling the tea.
While their group chat remains a sanctuary to discuss the inner workings of Jane Harper, when in-person, they’re personal critics are more focused on the lives of their fellow club members.
Attendees, who once reveled in debates about Gabrielle Zevin and Michael Robotham, now couldn’t get enough of the scandalous tales of that one chick they all used to go to school with.
Just last week, The Book Club had to make some tough decisions, even removing members from the group chat if they weren’t contributing any value, i.e., providing juicy gossip.
These ‘meetings’ usually take place a their favourite bougie lunch spot, where “we dedicate at least 10 minutes at the start to chat books and the rest of the time is spent drinking and gossiping”, local member Molly told The Betoota Advocate.
Molly Ward, the Book Club’s president, defended the decision to swap Sally Rooney for scandals.
She argued that it’s vital for members to stay “well-informed” about the latest developments in each other’s lives, after all, us humans evolved to have a vocal language for the sole purpose of gossiping about their fellow cave men and woman. [5]
It seems that in this book club, the real page-turners were the piping hot tales of scandal and intrigue.
[5] Dunbar, R. I. M. (1996). Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 9780571173969. OCLC 34546743.
