2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss The Cloisters by Katy Hays.

Pages: 312 pages

Length: 1 month (April)

Participants: Jen, Rebecca, Krysti, Ana

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Whenever I do a buddy read, I like to have a real discussion about the book, beyond 'I finished it and I liked it.'

Here's a couple of questions even if you haven't started the book yet:

1. What made you want to read this book in particular?
2. Did you know anything about the Cloisters before you added this book to your TBR?

For me, the answers to both are related. I first heard of the Cloisters in of all things a Babysitters Club book where they visit New York. Why a bunch of pre-teens would be interested in visiting a museum of medieval art and architecture beyond looking at the unicorn tapestries that don't look like we picture unicorns today is not explained.

Anyway, I've still not managed to visit New York City, and therefore never been to the Cloisters, though it is on my lifetime bucket list of things to achieve. Right now the closest I can get to it is to read a novel set at the museum.

I picked this book up from Book of the Month because it was a Read with Jenna book, and I tend to have a similar reading taste to hers. I didn't really know anything about the Cloisters, but the book itself seems to be dark academia, and that's a genre that I'm really fond of.

Starting this one today.

Patrick and Rachel are first introduced in Chapter 2. What were your first impressions of each of them? Discuss the events that resulted in Ann working at The Cloisters.

Patrick for me is one of those guys who breezes in, gets what he wants, and breezes back out, without doing a lick of work. Once they get to the Cloisters, it's not even clear what he's doing to prepare for this exhibition he seemed so excited about and insisted on hiring Ann for. He leaves Rachel and Ann alone in the library to do research and hang out. He barely seems to supervise them.

Rachel seems like exactly the kind of person who gets hired to work at a museum: pretty, obviously wealthy, assumes you know that when she says Spence, she's referring to her posh private school. I'm guessing her parents are donors to the Met and she's been going there all her life, but not as a regular visitor, as a person who gets invited to all the private events and gets to eat in the members dining room. Possibly she's even been to the Met Gala.

So obviously Ann is going to be grateful to them for taking her on: she's already rented an apartment and taken a summer to go to New York, only to be told the job she was hired for isn't going through. I did find that strange: who waits for you to fly over at your own expense and then tells you in person? So maybe it was a set-up all along.

So, I read the first four chapters today, and then I had to Google a bunch of photos of the museum. Such a gorgeous place, it’s definitely on my list of place to go to sooner rather than later now. 😊

About the characters so far. Patrick feels like a pretty typical owner, not someone who is managing a museum owned by the city. 🤣🤣🤣. He’s likable and he is someone who could be really helpful. I value that, but if I were his employee, I would worry about not receiving credit for my work. On the other hand, if his contacts were valuable enough to me, that might not even matter.

Rachel reminds me of the lead mean girl in the movie Mean Girls. She seems to be taking a strong interest in Ann, but I’m not sure she’s not setting her up for embarrassment down the road. She seems okay on the surface, but there’s something about her that repulses me.

Ann getting the job seems like a lucky break that mostly happens in stories. I agree with you that I don’t know how The Met didn’t inform her they had eliminated her position before she ever got to New York. It feels like the right place for her specialty too, so it’s a super lucky thing.

I’m also enjoying all the references to tarot cards. I’ve had a love for the cards since I was a teenager.

Just finished chapter eight, and this book is all vibes. I also feel like I’m right about Rachel after seeing some of the things she’s done in the last couple of chapters.

Okay, all the questions I find for this book assume you've already finished it, and I'm on like, page 119.

So another couple of questions from my own brain:

1. Everybody is dishonest in this novel: Rachel plays tricks on the other staff members and steals a cookie from the cafeteria. Leo has an entire greenhouse where he's growing his own plants to sell in the green market. How does the culture at The Cloisters seem to have contributed to this behaviour?

2. Tarot and horoscopes are still very popular today. Do you use any tools to predict your fate? How is the way we use them different to how medieval people used them as described in this book?

1. I think a culture develops in places that make certain kinds of behaviour acceptable because people get away with them. Rachel seems like the kind of person who has been entitled her entire life and some rules don't apply to her. Anyone who does try to enforce the same rules on her as everybody else, like Moira, and she turns pretty mean. For Leo, it seems like he's almost invisible at the Cloisters: he's a gardener, he works outside, he doesn't need a degree to do his job even if he has one. So in his case it seems like revenge against the system>

2. When I was a kid, I would read my horoscope in the paper every morning, but I grew up and stopped. However, I now notice that a huge number of people, but especially women, are very into these prediction methods again. They want to tell me all kinds of things about myself based on my star sign. Other people talk about 'my psychic' or getting tarot readings. I don't really understand it. Anyway, from my understanding of medieval horoscopes, people believed much more strongly in magic and its effects on their daily lives. Like if you looked at a fire while you were pregnant it was a bad omen for the baby level fatalism. I do hope that people now aren't thinking that a deck of cards is that strong in its knowledge of the future.

I agree with you on the culture of The Cloisters. It seems like there's very much a "rules don't apply" here culture where there can be sexual games, illicit greenhouses, joyriding other people's boats, etc. Moira is probably in this environment as a foil to remind readers of some of the rules--especially those that seem minor to the characters, such as smoking at the museum.

When I was a teen, I really became a little obsessed with magic and the tarot for 2-3 years. I still love the cards and the symbolism, but I don't actually see any magic or divination as a part of it, and I probably haven't played with the cards as a divination tool since college. I find that a lot of people feel that way about the enneagram today too. Almost like personality typing is a prediction of destiny or capability. . . .I know that there was a stronger connection between objects and magical capability during the Middle Ages, and I think some of that was due to various scientific theories that were not as advanced as the theories that we have today. However, I'm not entirely positive that the medieval connection to magic and superstition was so much more then than it is today. The closest science museum to me holds a "Rockfest" every year. While the lectures and everything are hard science, a stroll around the vendors area shows so much crystals and magical/healing powers. . . . or I think about the other women I know who sell essential oils and stuff. Maybe we're still a little prone to mystery and mysticism today.

Just popping in to say that I finished through chapter 14 today, so I’m halfway through. If I have some uninterrupted reading time in the next few days, I’ll have this one finished. 😉

We also do very little to separate actual science from woo-woo. Case in point: I was in a pharmacy to pick up real medicine from the real pharmacist who has real training. While I was waiting, I was looking at the shelves full of 'weight loss remedies' and herbal 'medicines' that are right next to the ibuprofen. I live in a place where we all have good medical care and where people pride themselves on how 'rational' they are. But you can also get acupuncture or homeopathy covered by your insurance.

Finished this one. Just post another question when you want to talk more about it 😊