The Wives
Tarryn Fisher, 2020
Graydon House Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781525809781
Summary
Thursday’s husband, Seth, has two other wives. She’s never met them, and she doesn’t know anything about them. She agreed to this unusual arrangement because she’s so crazy about him.
But one day, she finds something. Something that tells a very different—and horrifying—story about the man she married.
What follows is one of the most twisted, shocking thrillers you’ll ever read.
You’ll have to grab a copy to find out why. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Tarryn Fisher is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of some ten novels. Born a sun hater, she currently makes her home in Seattle, Washington, with her children, husband, and psychotic husky. She loves connecting with her readers on Instagram. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[E]ngrossing psychological thriller…. Fisher smoothly inserts moments of self-doubt, longing, paranoia, and triumph into her unsettling narrative as she draws the reader into Thursday’s conflicted and increasingly complicated life. Suspense fans will be rewarded.
Publishers Weekly
[A]n intriguing premise… [but] the story flounders in details and sudden revelations and suffers from a violent ending that feels abrupt and unfinished.… [Still,] the language is edgy, [and] readers eager for a new thriller release will most likely snap this up. —Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.
Library Journal
An intriguing plot takes some sharp twists in the search for the elusive truth in this fast-reading domestic thriller.
Booklist
[T]he narrative takes a sharp left turn that would be shocking if most genre readers hadn't already seen similar twists before. It's all a bit over the top, but Fisher… keeps a tight rein on her lightning-fast plot…. Derivative and shamelessly manipulative but still a lot of fun. Fisher is a writer to watch.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for THE WIVES … then take off on your own:
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Forest Dark
Nicole Krauss, 2017
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062430991
Summary
An achingly beautiful and breathtakingly original novel about personal transformation that interweaves the stories of two disparate individuals — an older lawyer and a young novelist — whose transcendental search leads them to the same Israeli desert.
Jules Epstein, a man whose drive, avidity, and outsized personality have, for sixty-eight years, been a force to be reckoned with, is undergoing a metamorphosis.
In the wake of his parents’ deaths, his divorce from his wife of more than thirty years, and his retirement from the New York legal firm where he was a partner, he’s felt an irresistible need to give away his possessions, alarming his children and perplexing the executor of his estate.
With the last of his wealth, he travels to Israel, with a nebulous plan to do something to honor his parents.
In Tel Aviv, he is sidetracked by a charismatic American rabbi planning a reunion for the descendants of King David who insists that Epstein is part of that storied dynastic line. He also meets the rabbi’s beautiful daughter who convinces Epstein to become involved in her own project — a film about the life of David being shot in the desert—with life-changing consequences.
But Epstein isn’t the only seeker embarking on a metaphysical journey that dissolves his sense of self, place, and history.
Leaving her family in Brooklyn, a young, well-known novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton where she has stayed every year since birth. Troubled by writer’s block and a failing marriage, she hopes that the hotel can unlock a dimension of reality — and her own perception of life — that has been closed off to her.
But when she meets a retired literature professor who proposes a project she can’t turn down, she’s drawn into a mystery that alters her life in ways she could never have imagined.
Bursting with life and humor, Forest Dark is a profound, mesmerizing novel of metamorphosis and self-realization—of looking beyond all that is visible towards the infinite. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1974
• Reared —Old Westbury, Long Island, USA
• Education—Stanford University; Oxford University
• Awards—William Saroyan Int'l. Prize; Prix du Meilleur Livre
Etranger (France); Edward Lewis Wallant Award
• Currently—Brooklyn, New York City
Nicole Krauss is an American author of several novels: Forest Dark (2017), Great House (2010), The History of Love (2005), and Man Walks into a Room (2002). Her work has achieved wide acclaim, with The New York Times referring to her as "one of America's most important authors."
Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Granta's Best American Novelists Under 40, and has been collected in Best American Short Stories (2003 and 2008). Her novels have been translated into thirty-five languages.
Krauss was born in New York City to an English mother and an American father who grew up partly in Israel. Krauss's maternal grandparents were born in Germany and Ukraine and later emigrated to London. Her paternal grandparents were born in Hungary and Slonim, Belarus, met in Israel, and later emigrated to New York. Many of these places are central to Krauss's 2005 novel, The History of Love, and the book is dedicated to her grandparents.
At the age of 14 Krauss became serious about writing. Until she began her first novel in 2002, Krauss wrote and published mainly poetry.
Education
Krauss enrolled in Stanford University in 1992, and that fall she met Joseph Brodsky who worked closely with her on her poetry over the next three years. He also introduced her to such writers as Italo Calvino and Zbigniew Herbert, who would have a lasting influence.
In 1999, three years after Brodsky died, Krauss produced a documentary about his work for BBC Radio 3, traveling to St. Petersburg where she stood in the "room and a half" where he grew up, made famous by his essay of that title. Krauss majored in English and graduated with Honors, winning a number of undergraduate prizes for her poetry as well as the Dean's Award for academic achievement. She also curated a reading series (with Fiona Maazel) at the Russian Samovar, a NYC restaurant co-founded by Brodsky.
In 1996, she was awarded a Marshall Scholarship and enrolled in a Masters program at Oxford University where she wrote her thesis about the American artist Joseph Cornell. During the second year of her scholarship she attended the Courtauld Institute in London, where she received a Masters in Art History, specializing in seventeenth-century Dutch art, and writing a thesis on Rembrandt.
In 2004, Krauss married the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. They live in Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York, and have two children. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Strange and beguiling.… [A] mystery that operates on grounds simultaneously literary and existential…metaphysical and emphatically realistic.… It’s a perfectly Kafkaesque vision, almost uncanny enough to be sublime.
Ruth Franklin - Harper’s
(Starred review.) Krauss’s elegant, provocative, and mesmerizing novel is her best yet. Rich in profound insights and emotional resonance.… Vivid, intelligent, and often humorous, this novel is a fascinating tour de force.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Wildly imaginative, darkly humorous, and deeply personal, this novel seems to question the very nature of time and space. Krauss commands our attention, and serious readers will applaud. —Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Entrancing and mysterious.… Krauss reflects with singing emotion and sagacity on Jewish history; war; the ancient, plundered forests of the Middle East; and the paradoxes of being. A resounding look at the enigmas of the self and the persistence of the past.
Booklist
Illuminating.… [Forest Dark] builds to a powerful emotional crescendo and an ending that feels revelatory. Haunting and reflective, poetic and wise, this is another masterful work from one of America’s best writers.
BookPage
[Krauss's] big questions don't always provoke big effects … and much of the drama … feels dry … [making] it harder to inspire the reader to draw connections…. An ambitiously high-concept tale that mainly idles in a contemplative register.
Kirkus Reviews
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)
(We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available.)
The Family Tabor
Cherise Wolas, 2018
Flatiron Books
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250081452
Summary
Harry Tabor is about to be named Man of the Decade, a distinction that feels like the culmination of a life well lived.
Gathering together in Palm Springs for the celebration are his wife, Roma, a distinguished child psychologist, and their children:
♦ Phoebe, a high-powered attorney;
♦ Camille, a brilliant social anthropologist;
♦ Simon, a big-firm lawyer, who brings his glamorous wife and two young daughters.
But immediately, cracks begin to appear in this smooth facade: Simon hasn’t been sleeping through the night, Camille can’t decide what to do with her life, and Phoebe is a little too cagey about her new boyfriend.
Roma knows her children are hiding things.
What she doesn’t know, what none of them know, is that Harry is suddenly haunted by the long-buried secret that drove him, decades ago, to relocate his young family to the California desert. As the ceremony nears, the family members are forced to confront the falhoods upon which their lives are built.
Set over the course of a single weekend, and deftly alternating between the five Tabors, this provocative, gorgeously rendered novel, reckons with the nature of the stories we tell ourselves and our family and the price we pay for second chances. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.F.A., New York University; J.D., Loyola University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Cherise Wolas is a writer, lawyer, and film producer. She received a BFA from New York University’s Tisch was School of the Arts, and a JD from Loyola Law School. The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, her debut novel, was published in 2017, and The Family Tabor in 2018.
A native of Los Angeles, she lives in New York City with her husband. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Brace yourself for prose that is confident and prickly, and characters that are complex and problematic.
Toronto Star
The Family Tabor is a hypnotic generational saga.
Chicago Review of Books
A fascinating story about family, faith, and loyalty, The Family Tabor is not to be missed.
Bustle
In this compelling story, luck, like love, can be elusive, ever-present and lost. Wolas, who was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for her first novel, explores Jewish identity and the connection to the past, with a nod to Leonard Cohen.
Jewish Week
The Family Tabor, Wolas's follow-up to her acclaimed The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, is a piercing and multilayered portrayal of an accomplished yet deeply troubled family.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) [P]recisely meshed poetic and cinematic scenes to realize a life of such quiet majesty and original consideration of family interplay that she does the impossible. Readers not only will mourn coming to the end, they will feel compelled to start over…. Breathtaking.
Library Journal
Wolas takes on weighty themes such as atonement and faith, but the paper-thin characters teeter under that heavy burden. Gorgeous writing notwithstanding …too much polish and too little substance. — Poornima Apte
Booklist
Strangely, all the buildup in the first four-fifths of the novel simply fizzles out in the last section. The ponderous writing is the last nail in the coffin.…. The premises are not believable and the exposition, tedious and overblown. A disappointment..
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Harry Tabor is being interviewed by the Palm Times reporter, he says: "The past no longer exists, there is only the future, whatever it may hold." How has that sentiment shaped the course of his life? Do you agree with that point of view?
2. Why does Roma dream so frequently of her grandmother, Tatiana? What does she represent for Roma?
3. Why is Roma so affected by Noelani’s case? What does the little girl’s story reveal about Roma herself? Why do you think Noelani runs?
4. Discuss Phoebe’s views of herself. Her friends disbelieve her when she says, "Professional success isn’t the sum total of me, it’s not all that I want..." and her thoughts make it clear that she wants love and a child. Do you think Phoebe is being honest with herself?
5. Why does Phoebe invent Aaron Green? What does her invention reveal about her desires? About the pressures she feels?
6. Why does Camille have such a deep interest in researching tribes in exotic locales? How does she compare and contrast her time in the Trobriand Islands with "real life"?
7. Why does Camille hide her depression? Why does she feel she might have to end her relationship with Valentine Osin?
8. Why has Simon been suffering from insomnia, and what does it reveal about him? About his relationship with Elena? About what he might be seeking in his life?
9. Discuss the dynamics between Camille, Phoebe, and Simon. What draws them together and holds them apart? How do their bonds shift over the course of the novel?
10. Discuss the dynamics between Simon and Elena. What drew them together in the beginning and what might be drawing them apart now? Does it only have to do with Simon’s potential interest in exploring his faith?
11. Roma defines family as…
[A] shambling creature made from accidental love, a meshing of beliefs occasionally disarrayed by inevitable bafflement, and the creation of others adorned with names signaling hope for their natures, prospects for their futures. Whether there is love, happiness, contentment, success, health, and satisfaction, or sadness, trauma, and tragedy in any family, so much is dependent on ephemeral luck.
Do you agree with her formulation? How would you define family?
12. Harry thinks he’s been a very lucky man. When Roma wakes, she first thinks about luck. Phoebe thinks her luck in love has run out. Camille thinks her luck is broken. Simon thought he was the luckiest boy when his father knew everything about San Jacinto. What role does luck play in each of the Tabors' lives? What role does the concept of luck play in the novel? What role does luck play in your own life?
13. Harry begins to hear a "voice" while he’s playing tennis with Levitt. Who do you think the voice belongs to?
14. The "voice" tells Harry: "When you began life anew in the desert, the future became everything, the only thing, and since then you have believed you have always lived an endless sequence of perfect days." Neurology has proven that a person can completely eliminate memories, and such elimination alters the brain. Why has Harry eliminated the dark memories from his past in New York? Have you ever been shocked by the reappearance of a memory you’d long forgotten?
15. The Tabors are extremely close; yet each of them keeps secrets from the others. How well do you think we can ever know the people in our lives, even our family members?
16. Roma asks Simon,
Who among us is ever as good as they can be, as they want to be? And isn’t the effort what’s most important, the pursuit in that direction, that the good we discover in ourselves we claim, or reclaim, and use wisely and well, and spread it around, and pass it on?
What do you think? How do each of the Tabors make an effort to be as good as they can be, and what holds them back? Do you think subsequent good acts can ameliorate or wipe out earlier bad acts?
17. When Simon realizes his marriage to Elena is over, he reflects: "love, no matter how real, no matter the passion that birthed it, is not always enough." What exactly does he mean? Do you agree?
18. What does Harry mean that he is a "historical Jew"? Discuss the role of Judaism in the novel. How are the different characters shaped by it? The Tabors are a modern Jewish family. Does the fact that they are Jewish make them different from other families of different religious faiths? What do you see as similarities and differences?
19.The novel ends with Simon visiting Max Stern’s house in Jerusalem. What is the significance of that meeting? What do you think the future holds for Simon?
20.Which member of the Tabor family did you most relate to? Why?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Jetsetters
Amanda Eyre Ward, 2020
Random House
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399181894
Summary
When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the Become a Jetsetter contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children:
Lee—an almost-famous actress;
Cord—a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can’t seem to find a partner;
Regan—a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday.
Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young, when she was a single mother who meant everything to them.
When she wins the contest, the family packs their baggage—both literal and figurative—and spends ten days traveling from sun-drenched Athens through glorious Rome to tapas-laden Barcelona on an over-the-top cruise ship, the Splendido Marveloso.
As lovers new and old join the adventure, long-buried secrets are revealed and old wounds are reopened, forcing the Perkins family to confront the forces that drove them apart and the defining choices of their lives.
Can four lost adults find the peace they’ve been seeking by reconciling their childhood aches and coming back together?
In the vein of The Nest and The Vacationers, The Jetsetters is a delicious and intelligent novel about the courage it takes to reveal our true selves, the pleasures and perils of family, and how we navigate the seas of adulthood. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Raised—Rye, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Williams College; M.F.A., University of Montana
• Currently—lives in Austin, Texas
Amanda Eyre Ward is the author of seven novels, including How to Be Lost (2005), Close Your Eyes (2011), The Same Sky (2015), and The Nearness of You (2017). Her most recent is The Jetsetters (2020). She has also published a collection of short stories, Love Stories in This Town (2009).
Ward has lived, worked, and studied in such far-flung places as Montana and Greece… Egypt and Maine… South Africa and Cape Cod. She is now settled in Austin, Texas, where she lives with her family. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[Amanda] Ward reveals she has a way with humor.… The author’s eye for forced fun is exquisite.… There is a real poignancy in this novel, as wounded characters struggle to regain childhood loyalties. Ward nails how family expeditions are ruined and saved, over and over again, by fleeting moments of connection and the consensus to survive without killing one another.
Nre York Times Book Review
[T]he Perkins’ desperate attempts to both keep up appearances and tell their truths are interrupted by…mandatory cruise-ship fun. [D]ysfunctions run deep, and each plot twist threatens to sink their sanity, resulting in a funny, moving tale of the complications of familial love.
Booklist
Author Ward… has created a complex story that explores the tragedies and long-term effects of withheld love, verbal abuse, alcoholism, and depression…. Open, optimistic, caring, romantic, and thoughtful Giovanni—Cord’s fiance—is a highlight of the book.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, 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)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Stay With Me
Ayobami Adebayo, 2017
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451494603
Summary
This celebrated, unforgettable first novel gives voice to both husband and wife as they tell the story of their marriage—and the forces that threaten to tear it apart.
Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them.
But four years into their marriage — after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures — Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time — until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife.
Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant, which, finally, she does — but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. An electrifying novel of enormous emotional power, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 29, 1988
• Where—Lagos, Nigeria
• Education—B.A., M.A., Obafemi Awolowo University; M.A., University of East Anglia
• Currently—lives in Nigeria
Ayobami Adebayo, a Nigerian novelist, was born in Lagos. She holds BA and MA in English literature from Obafemi Awolowo University. She also has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, where she was awarded an international bursary for creative writing. She has also studied with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Margaret Atwood.
In addition to her university degrees, Adebayo has received fellowships and residencies from Ledig House, Sinthian Cultural Centre, Hedgebrook, Ox-Bow School of Art, Ebedi Hills and the Siena Art Institute. Adebayo's stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, and one was highly commended in the 2009 Commonwealth short story competition.
Since 2009, Adebayo has worked as an editor for Saraba Magazine. She lives in Nigeria. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] stunning debut…Stay With Me …has a remarkable emotional resonance and depth of field. It is, at once, a gothic parable about pride and betrayal; a thoroughly contemporary — and deeply moving — portrait of a marriage; and a novel, in the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.… [Adebayo] is an exceptional storyteller. She writes not just with extraordinary grace but with genuine wisdom about love and loss and the possibility of redemption. She has written a powerfully magnetic and heartbreaking book.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Affecting and powerful.… Adebayo's prose is a pleasure: immediate, unpretentious and flecked with whip-smart Nigerian-English dialogue. She handles weighty themes with an absence of sentimentality.
Sunday Times (UK)
(Starred review.) Adebayo slowly reveals [the couple's] unspoken shame by having both narrate chapters covering the same events.… Her methodical exposure of her characters' secrets…culminates in a tender, satisfying conclusion.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [An] emotionally powerful first novel that relies…on old-fashioned storytelling.… Adebayo's work makes a blazing entry onto the list of young, talented writers from Nigeria. Readers who pick up this debut novel will not put it down until they've finished. —Ally Bissell
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Adebayo describes parenthood and love with heartbreaking prose. She deftly reveals secrets and the decisions that set life-altering events in motion. The story's fast pace brings surprising twists.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Set against a backdrop of student protests, a presidential assassination, and a military coup, Adebayo's novel captures how the turmoil of Nigerian life in the 1980s and '90s seeps into the most personal of decisions — to fight for…one's family. [A] fine young writer.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the early stages of Yejide and Akin's courtship, from both of their perspectives. What is Yejide's initial reaction to Akin's romantic propositions? Consider Yejide's childhood and past that is revealed over the course of the novel. What does she seek in a romantic relationship? How does Akin provide security for her? How does Akin convince Yejide that he is trustworthy?
2. Consider the family unit as a social force in Stay with Me. How do the opinions of Akin's family members influence his decisions? Describe the relationship between Akin and his parents. How does Akin both obey and defy the wishes of his family? How does Yejide navigate her role as a daughter-in-law?
3. In the beginning of Stay with Me, the reader is introduced to the central conflict of Yejide and Akin's life: their infertility as a couple. How is Yejide and Akin's childlessness seen as a reflection on the family unit? What is the burden of expectation placed on Yejide? How is she treated by Akin's family as a result of her infertility? By the community? How do attitudes toward Yejide change once she is pregnant?
4. Discuss the road leading to Yejide's first pregnancy. How do the social pressures to become a mother weigh on Yejide? Once Yejide learns that she is no longer Akin's only wife, how does the urgency of her mission become more pronounced? Consider the barriers to her pregnancy, and what she learns about herself from the field remedies and the medical establishment. How does the psychological trauma that accompanies her journey weigh on her throughout the novel?
5. The tension between modern attitudes and traditional thought informs much of Stay with Me. How does Yejide and Akin's early agreement of monogamy conflict with the prevailing social attitude? How does this create tension over the course of the novel? How does Yejide defy the wishes of her husband's family? How does the eventual shift of parental responsibilities to Akin upend the expectations of motherhood and parenting?
6. Consider the identity of "mother," and how understanding of that role shifts for Yejide over the course of the novel. How does the story of her mother's death influence her worldview and her perspective on family? Discuss the relationship Yejide had with her father's other wives. Which woman in her life, if any, provides her with an understanding of what a loving mother-child relationship looks like? Once she becomes a mother, how does her self-image change?
7. Describe Yejide's relationship with Iya Bolu. How does Iya Bolu's attitude toward Yejide shift over the years? When does Yejide seem to earn the most respect from Iya Bolu? When does she earn her sympathy?
8. Consider the political background of Stay with Me. How does the instability of the government undermine the health and happiness of Yejide and her family? How does the political upheaval reflect the emotional turmoil of Yejide and Akin?
9. The reveal of Akin's medical condition is an important development in the plot. Given this revelation, would you consider Funmi's death to be purposeful? How did you interpret his reaction to her accusation? How does Akin contend with threats to his masculinity throughout the novel?
10. Discuss the significance of the hair salon in Yejide's life. How does it encourage her independence? How does it act as a place of gathering within their community?
11. Compare the bedtime story that Yejide tells her children with the tale that Akin shares with Rotimi as she grows. What do these stories reveal about the worldviews of both parents? What lessons are they sharing? How is it a cautionary tale between parent and child? How does it reflect Yejide's own childhood experiences?
12. Discuss the process of mourning as depicted in Stay with Me. How does the community react to Yejide's mourning for the loss of her first child versus her second? Discuss the general attitude towards Yejide's depression from her family and those around her.
13. What is Akin's relationship with his brother? How do they compete with each other? How do they jockey for the coveted spot of favored son throughout the novel? After their brawl, how does their relationship change? Do you think Dotun possessed real romantic feelings for Yejide?
14. Discuss Yejide's reunion with Rotimi. Were you surprised by this reveal? How did you interpret Timi's insistence on calling Yejide “Moomi”?
15. Stay with Me is a novel that challenges readers' expectations with its surprising reveals, its secrets, and its deception. What plot development did you find to be most surprising? How does Adebayo play with the idea of expectation versus reality throughout the novel?
(We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available.)