Goodbye, Vitamin (Khong) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Goodbye, Vitamin … then take off on your own:

1. What do you think of Ruth Young?

2. How does Ruth respond to the breakup with her finance Joel? What do you think of the line, "You know what else is unfair, about Joel? That I loosened the jar lid, so somebody else could open him"? What does she mean?

3. Talk about Ruth's relationships with her parents, especially with her father. Consider the journal her father kept when she was a little girl. How has her relationship with Howard changed now that he is ill?

4. What happened to the family after Ruth left home, and why did she stay away for so long?

5. Talk about Ruth's mother. How does she react to (or cope with) Howard's increasing illness?

6. What do you think of the graduate students' ruse: to pretend that Howard has been reinstated to his academic position? Helpful? Cruel? Funny? Does it help him, "keep his mind off, well, losing it"?

7. How does the book treat the function of memory— the way it identifies us, fails us, haunts us, pains us … and, of course, enables us to function? Ruth once describes her memory, for example of Joel, "like an ancient candlestick from some wrecked ship." What does she mean by that? Talk about your experiences with your own memory. Are we our memories?

8. Has anyone in your life been a victim of Alzheimer's? If so, is the author's account of it in Goodbye, Vitamin realistic?

9. Talk about the book's title: how does it relate to the story? Consider, too, the book's cover (hardback edition) with its pink, orange, and yellow lemons. What do the lemons suggest about the story inside?

10. Many reviewers comment on the book's humor. How does Khong manage to take a desperately grim subject and turn it into something less grim? What is Khong's technique as a writer?    

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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