Are you starting or leading a book club and wondering what to ask to get the discussion going? Here are some of the best book club questions to get you started!
These book club discussion questions offer generic book club questions, fiction book club discussion questions, and nonfiction book club discussion questions so that you have a jumping off point no matter what book you’re reading. With these questions in hand, you can transform your book club from surface-level discussion to a more comprehensive and exciting conversation!
The book group discussion questions here are meant to work for any book, but of course some may work better for certain books than for others. So choose the ones that work best for you and your book group and start discussing!
General Book Club Questions
To start with, here are some generic book club questions that you can ask regardless of the type of book you’re reading! Use these as book club discussion guides to help steer your book group’s conversation.
1. How did this book make you feel? (Happy, sad, amused, disturbed, irritated, etc.?)
2. What did you like best about this book?
3. What did you like least about this book?
4. Which characters did you like best and what did you like about them?
5. Which characters did you like least and what did you dislike about them?
6. Which character did you most relate to? Why?
7. Which character(s) in the book would you like to meet?
8. Were the characters convincing and believable? Or were they one-dimensional?
9. What were the characters’ motivations for their actions?
10. Did you disagree with any of the characters’ actions? What would you have done differently?
11. Did the characters grow and change throughout the novel or did they stay the same?
12. If you could read this story from another character’s point of view, which character would you choose?
13. What themes did you see in this story?
14. What did you think about the way this story was told?
15. Did you like the plot? Why or why not?
16. Is the story driven by the plot or by the characters? (E.g. are the events happening quickly, or is more time spent examining the inner life of the characters?)
17. Were there any plot twists? Did you love them? Hate them?
18. Which parts of this book stood out to you?
19. What was your favorite part of the book?
20. What was your least favorite part of the book?
21. What is one of your favorite quotes from this book? Why did it stand out to you?
22. What was your favorite chapter? Why?
23. What surprised you most about this book?
24. What did you think of the ending? Did it end the way you expected? Did you like the ending or dislike it? Was anything left unresolved?
25. What (if anything) would you change about the ending?
26. What did you think about the author’s writing style?
27. Do you think the author’s age, upbringing, culture, etc. had any impact on this book? If so, how?
28. If you could talk with the author, what would you like to ask them?
29. Have you read anything else by this author? If so, how did their other works shape your understanding of this book?
30. Would you read another book by the same author?
31. How original was this book?
32. Was the book a good length? Or would you have liked it to be shorter or longer? Why?
33. Did your opinion of this book change as you read it? If so, how?
34. Is this book’s style/genre something you normally read? Why or why not?
35. Would you ever re-read it? Why or why not?
36. Did this book remind you of any other books you’ve read?
37. Did this book’s title fit the story? What title would you give it if you could choose a new one?
38. If this book were turned into a movie, who would you cast? What sections would you leave in and what would you cut?
39. Is this book overrated, underrated, or just right?
40. Are you glad you read this book? Why or why not?
41. Would you recommend this book to a friend? If so, how would you summarize it to get them to read it?
Fiction Book Club Questions
These questions for book discussion are specifically aimed at fiction books, so if you’re currently reading a fictional title be sure to add these to your list!
42. How well did the author build the world in this book?
43. Was the time period and setting important to the story? Was it portrayed accurately?
44. How would this book have been different if it was set in a different time period or setting?
45. Which place in the book would you most like to visit?
46. Was the narrator’s voice compelling?
47. Are there plot points the book didn’t address?
48. If you had to (or could) trade places with one character, who would you choose?
49. What do you think happens to the characters after the book’s ending?
Nonfiction Book Club Questions
The book discussion questions here are meant for nonfiction books, so these are great questions for a book club to discuss when reading nonfiction or memoir titles!
50. Was the book easy to read or difficult to get into?
51. Did you know anything about this subject before reading this book?
52. Did this book make you want to explore the subject more?
53. Was the topic covered adequately and well? If not, what do you think was missing?
54. Did you see any bias in the way the information was presented? If so, explain.
55. Was the author’s research credible? What do you think about their research?
56. Do you agree with the author’s point of view?
57. What did you learn from this book?
58. What was your biggest takeaway from this book?