Our book club picked a $40 special edition that turned out to be a total dud

Nancy Garcia · 2026-03-18T14:50:09.631382+00:00

Our group decided to splurge on the fancy hardcover of 'The Midnight Library' for our March read, the one with the gold foil and extra author notes. We all chipped in, thinking it would make the discussion richer. Honestly, the extra content was just a few pages of early drafts and the binding started coming loose after two weeks. It felt like a cash grab, not a premium experience. Half the group thinks we should have just gotten the regular paperback and used the leftover money for snacks, but the other half says supporting nice editions is important for the publishing industry. Has your club ever regretted buying a specific version of a book?

sageellis4mo ago

Spent twenty bucks on a leather bound classic that fell apart faster than my last attempt at IKEA furniture. My shelf looks fancy but that book is held together with packing tape and regret. Sometimes the cheap paperback is the one that actually survives being read more than once. Feels like they spend all the money on the cover and forget about the pages.

7

evan_nguyen235mo ago

We did that with a fancy Dune copy last year, same letdown. The paper quality was awful for the price.

2

susan_hall5mo ago

Honestly it's just a book, you can still read the story. Save the fancy stuff for art books or something actually worth it.

1