What is the argument for whole novels for the whole class?

So what exactly is Sacks' revolutionary method for teaching the whole novel to the whole class? This was my driving question when I purchased this text.

Ariel Sacks' whole novel teaching approach began with a suggestion she received while student teaching: "Instead of having them [students] read sections and making them answer questions about each one, let them read the whole thing. Then have them talk about it, like adults would do in a real book club" (1). Sacks proceeds to recount her first attempt in which everything went gloriously at the private school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Each student actively read the book - on time no less - and participated in thought-provoking discussion which created a "multidimensional literary world" (2). I just about put the book down after reading page two.

However, in the next paragraph, Sacks shares how her attempt to replicate this experience during her first year of teaching at a Title I middle school yielded drastically different results. Half of her class read the book by the assigned deadline, and the other half didn't seem to understand they should have been reading the book and there was a deadline. Aha! Okay, that's real teaching stuff.

THREE ARGUMENTS SACKS MAKES FOR HER WHOLE-NOVEL TEACHING METHOD
Sacks asserts that student engagement, motivation, and confidence increase when students are allowed to read an entire work without the teacher parsing the experience into chapter-size bites with teacher-driven comprehension questions. Okay... I can agree with this. By the end of the five weeks which I have often dedicated to literature circles, I'm "over it" along with many of my students. The enthusiasm for the reading, and the sheer pleasure of reading, is often missing by the end of a literature circle. However, I do believe that some motivation is compromised when students do not get a choice in their reading material.

She also argues that literary analysis is much more authentic and motivating when students compare their responses to the literature and examine how and why their responses differ. However, as an ELA teacher I have learning standards that I need to help my students meet. If students are determining the direction the analysis takes, how do I ensure that learning targets are being met?  In addition, I gradually release the responsibility of writing discussion questions to my students by the end of the literature circle unit. Yet, I don't always feel that these student-driven discussions are authentic and result in a deep analysis of the text.

She also explains how whole novel studies provide a framework for her classroom curriculum, providing the content that fuels the reading of related nonfiction and providing the inspiration for classroom writing. I love how the curriculum has a natural flow and "connectedness". In one of the districts where I have taught, I felt that the district curriculum caused my instruction to feel linear as students move from one learning target to another and the cyclical nature of an ELA classroom was not achieved.