Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Catering to Nobody:
1. Talk about Goldy as a character. How would you describe her? Some readers find her strong or spunky, others see her as whiny and unlikable? What do you think of her as the book's heroine?
2. What do you make of the other characters? There's John Richard, "The Jerk"—Goldy's ex-husband. Is his abusive behavior and his string of affairs handled realistically? And what about Marla—what does she bring to the party?
3. What is the reason that Goldy initiates her own investigation into the attempted poisoning of her ex-father-in-law, Fritz Korman?
4. What does Goldy learn about Fritz...why do people seem to have grudges against him?
5. How does Goldy's son Arch cope with the death of his favorite teacher, Laura Smiley? Are his coping mechanisms typical of young people who experience the death of someone close? Did you find it odd that Goldy doesn't demand more from the school regarding Arch's black eyes?
6. Laura supposedly committed suicide, but when Goldy begins to examine Laura's life...she suspects something else was at play? What, in particular, prompts Goldy to doubt the official cause of death?
7. Talk about the red herrings—the techniques the author uses to lead readers astray, causing us to wrongly suspect various neighbors in Aspen Meadows? Were you taken in by the false clues?
8. What about the real clues? Does Davidson disguise them well enough? In other words, were you surprised—or were you able to figure out who the culprit was early on?
9. Does this book deliver...as a mystery? Did it hold your interest, did you find yourself quickly turning pages to learn what happened next? Were you satisfied, or surprised, by the ending? Was the writing fresh? Or did you find the writing cliched...and the ending predictable?
10. If you've read others in the Goldy series, how does this one stack up to the others? If this is the first Goldy book you've read, are you inspired to read more?
11. Talk about the recipes—have you tried them? Are you serving them at your book club meeting? Why does Davidson include them as part of her novel? What part do they play in the plot? Is there a symbolic significance to the use of recipes, the fact that an entire series is based around a catering business? Or are they just for fun?!
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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