It varies a lot so if you want to join one, make sure you get a feel for the style first. Some book clubs are basically just excuse to get together and socialise and actually reading the book and/or discussing it in any real detail is optional. Others might take things a lot more seriously and turning up without having done the reading and having something to say about it would be a faux pas.
Similarly, some book clubs focus on different kinds of books. If you want to read light-hearted romance novels but the rest of the club are really into postmodernism, you’re not going to have an enjoyable time.
Kuang has all the subtlety of a stick of dynamite and I have never in my life read a book as patronising and didactic as Babel. Not only does this create a dull, heavy handed narrative in which the villains are about as fleshed out as Dick Dastardly but she frequently brings that narrative grinding to a halt to insert footnotes to exposit further on the points that are already being screamed aloud in the text proper.