Signs You Are a Vibe Reader Stuck in a Literary Book Club.

1.        Not only did you not annotate your copy, but you can’t even remember the characters’ names.

2.        You crack a joke, and they side-eye you before completing their thought on the author’s background and what that brought to the novel’s point of view.

3.        You admit that you only got 47% of the way through, and not even a nervous cough breaks up the silence.

4.        You suggest a: domestic thriller/romcom/cozy mystery and get politely overruled for the next quiet masterpiece that only those in the know have heard of (read: NYT list).

5.        You’re reading to escape the mundane, not experience it again in excruciating, wordy detail. Give me a shock, give me a plot twist. Make me feel something!

6.        You’re ready to scream about the one kitchen scene that emotionally wrecked you. They came ready to discuss postmodern despair.

7.        You mention a tiny, perfect moment between two characters, they redirect to colonialism.

8.        You suspect half the room didn’t love the book either, but everyone is cosplaying intellectual fulfillment.

9.        You finish books because the pages kept turning, they finish because the books are IMPORTANT.

10.  You leave every meeting thinking, “I wonder where my true book people are.”