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 Terms of Endearment:
1. Aurora Greenway claims "only a saint could live with me, and I can't live with a saint." How would you describe Aurora? Is she a sympathetic character. Is she fully-drawn with emotional and psychological complexity...or is she one-dimensional and cartoonish?
2. What kind of mother is Aurora...what is her relationship with her daughter, Emma? How might Aurora's nurturing skills (or lack of) have shaped Emma's personality and her approach to life?
3. Of Aurora's many suitors (first of all...are 5 suitors even realistic for a woman entering her 50's?) is there one in particular you were rooting for? Why does she treat them with such disdain...and why do they keep coming back?
4. Mr. McMurtry is a very funny writer—known for his snappy, humorous dialogue and near slap-stick plot points. Which parts of this story do you find particularly funny?
5. What do you think of Flap Horton, Emma's husband? Why do the two stay together as a couple?
6. Because the first part of the book is comedic, reviewers and readers have commented that the last part, which revolves around Emma, feels "tacked on." In other words, it doesn't mesh well with what comes before—almost as if the novel is two separate books. Do you agree...did you have difficulty switching gears? Or do you think the story moves smoothly into the Emma section and onto its final pages?
7. What are "terms of endearment" and what—thematically— does the expression mean in the context of this book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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