Regional Office Is Under Attack (Gonzales) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if and when they're available. In the meantime use our LitLovers talking points to kick off a discussion for The Regional Office Is Under Attack!...then take off on your own...

1. Describe Rose, her personality, upbringing and her longings. Why is she disgruntled enough to lead the attack against her former employer?

2. Same goes for Sarah. In fact, what does the novel suggest about the need fit in, to belong, not just for Rose and Sarah but for all the characters?

3. Talk about Oyemi and Mr. Niles and how they came to found The Regional Office. Is Oyemi insane? And why does Mr. Niles begins to have second thoughts about the enterprise?

4. What about the mysterious Henry? Playing both sides? Motivations? Is Henry the good guy...or bad guy?

5. In attempting to fill out his fictional world, Manuel Gonzales weaves in excerpts from an essay subtitled, "Tracking the Rise and Fall of an American Institution." What do you learn about the world in which the book's characters live? Is there enough information for you to get full sense of what that wider fictional world is like?

6. Did you find the sudden switch in point-of-view to the hostages jarring...or a clever and revealing narrative move on the part of the author? What do we learn through the above-ground workers' complaints and resentments?

7. What is Gonzales satirizing in The Regional Office Is Under Attack!? Consider, for instance, whether an office setting—with its humdrum, prosaic tasks—offers a sufficiently heroic setting for an epic battle between good and evil. In other words, think how Gonzales makes use of familiar sci-fi / thriller tropes to break the genre open and reveal the deeper truths of the people who populate—and read—fantasy novels. Consider the all-too-human need for escape, adventure, acceptance, and belonging—as those needs apply both to the superheroes within the genre and to the readers of the genre.

8. What is the meaning of the message from the Oracles?—The one who once loved will one day destroy that which was loved. How did Oyemi misinterpret the message? And who turns out to be "the one" predicted to destroy the Regional Office?

9. The Regional Office commits crimes to safeguard society. Are those crimes justified?

10. What actually happens at the end? Who lives? Who dies? What about Emma?

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

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