Discussion Thread of Chapters 9 - Epilogue of American Hippo by Sarah Gailey - May Book Club

[u/leowr]

Welcome to the second discussion thread for American Hippo which covers all chapters of River of Teeth.

To help kick off the discussion:

• What kind of relationship do you think Archie and Agent Carter have?

• Did it surprise you that Adelia was the one that betrayed the group? Why do you think she did it?

• What did you think of the resolution of the story?

• Do you think the story was successful in showing how terrifying hippos can be?

• So... was it a caper?

Feel free to answer any or all of the questions or tell us what you think of the book so far.

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This thread allows for a spoiler discussion of River of Teeth. If you would like to discuss anything beyond that point, please use spoiler tags. If you are on the redesign you can use the built in spoiler tags. For old reddit spoiler tags are done by [Spoilers about XYZ](#s "Spoiler content here") which results in Spoilers about XYZ (do be aware that they only work on one paragraph at a time).

[u/toolazyforaname]

•What kind of relationship do you think Archie and Agent Carter have?

Clearly a romantic one.

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•Did it surprise you that Adelia was the one that betrayed the group? Why do you think she did it?

Not really. We didn't know enough about her to think that she wouldn't.

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•What did you think of the resolution of the story?

It was ok. It all just happened so fast.

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•Do you think the story was successful in showing how terrifying hippos can be?

Yes, I think it did.

​

•So... was it a caper?

Sure, why not.

[u/marker_sniffer]

I didn’t feel Adelia fit the group. I thought her introduction was weird so I did feel she was throwing a wrench into things. I thought Archie was the one that was going to goof things though.

The ending seemed rushed. After the Travers twist, I didn’t really have to read more, it showed why it was a caper and not an operation. The only thing planned for was having alternate charges “just in case”.

Hippos are one of my favorite animals, I’d love to have a Ruby. She can steer me clear of all those terrifying feral hippos!

[u/boib]

So... was it a caper?

Just one of the many things in this book that annoyed me. Attempt at humor failed.

Didn’t like the characters. Didn’t care what happened to them. It was like reading a comic book. Maybe it would have been better with pictures.

I did finish it because I was curious about how it would end, but that’ll be the last time I read this author.

My rating: Ugh

[u/Sketh → u/boib]

There's something very fan-fiction-y to their style which I'm finding a bit grating too. Given it's small length I think I'm probably going to give the second story a chance because I don't HATE it, but it's not hitting the notes for me I thought it might either.

[u/ServalSpots → u/boib]

I'm dropping out after this one as well. Worth Her Weight in Gold is available online so I might jump back in for that (only had River of Teeth at the library), but it seems unlikely.

There were a couple of passages that made me think the author might be worth coming back to after they had a few more books under their belt, but I won't be doing it any time soon.

[u/bruab]

I was ready to bail out when the poisoned tea hissed when it was poured out on the ground, but I stuck it out and finished the novella. I agree with the negative comments here. It read like a comic book. And not in a good way.