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 This Is Where I Leave You:
1. Is the Foxman family really in mourning? How can you tell? As an atheist, why does Mort request that his family sit shiva after his death?
2. What's wrong with these people! Whom do you finger as the most dysfunctional family member, including spouses? Which character do you find...funniest...most despicable...most sympathetic? Be honest, now: any of them you identify with?
3. What has caused the tension between Judd and his brother Paul? What are some of the other family secrets and entanglements?
4. Clearly, Judd is an adult, yet this book can also be seen as a delayed coming-of-age story. What does Judd learn in the end about himself and his role in helping to create the world in which he finds himself?
5. How 'bout that rabbi? Is the Foxman's assessment of him fair?
6. What do the Foxman offspring come to understand about their parents by the book's finale?
7. How does Judd respond to becoming a father, and how does he connect his role as soon-to-be parent with the loss of his own father? In what way does parenthood take on meaning for him?
8. What is the significance of the book's title?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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