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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/17780
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I wrote a novel called _Animal Suicide_. It's a mix of romance and dark humor. It's about a girl who, after a weird incident, postpones a pill overdose and starts researching about the topic of animal suicide (sorry for repeating this on the site, but it's to make the question clearer).

The "universe" of this novel is set in real life, but, like in many humorous stories, it has its own crazy phenomena. For instance, Li-Mei, the protagonist, encounters two kinds of people: those who think that animal suicide is a crazy/taboo topic and those who are actively researching it. So, she eventually stumbles into an Animal Suicide Club and a lady who has been obsessed with animal suicide since childhood.

Everything is OK. But here's the problem: readers think that having Li-Mei find people who are interested in animal suicide is too convenient, kind of like deus-ex-machina.

So, I don't know what to do. Should I just remove all these deus-ex-machina? Or find a way to make them more "agreeable"?

**EDIT (based on Lauren's answer):**

Detailed example: At the animal behavior class, Li-Mei is laughed at for asking about animal suicide. That's how the founder of the Animal Suicide Club (who's in the class) finds her. Is this still deus-ex-machina?

Original score: 2