Book Club: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Remember how I was sooooooooo excited for book club?  Well, our first official book club was a success!  I really don't need to mention the fact that we only spent 20 minutes of the 4-5 hours we all were together actually discussing The Hunger Games, do I?  I think the book, being youth fiction, was probably not "meaty" enough to really get some good conversations going. 

The main points that were brought up revolved around the simplicity of the book's main character, Katniss.  She's really portrayed as a product of her surroundings: a killer, unidirectional in her goals, and a heartless survivor.  Most of the book club agreed that they found Peeta, Katniss' "love" interest in the reality killing games, more interesting and much easier to care about.  I did enjoy the commentary on reality television and the rampant voyeurism that is a part of our current pop culture; this theme is central to the "importance" of the Hunger Games.

Some of our book club attendees couldn't help but read the next two books in the trilogy, just to find out the resolution between the characters.  I was tempted to do the same, since the first book was such a page-turner!  But again, as much as we tried to dig deeper into the subtext of The Hunger Games, we realized there wasn't much else to discuss.

In light of that, the next book selected is The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, and having finished it last night I have no doubts that this text will spark some interesting banter!  Have any of you read this or heard anything about it?  I'd love to hear what you think!  If you haven't read it yet, get reading!  Book club will be in a couple weeks, so you have time!