Seven Days of Us
Francesca Hornak, 2017
Penguin Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451488756
Summary
A warm, wry, sharply observed debut novel about what happens when a family is forced to spend a week together in quarantine over the holidays…
It’s Christmas, and for the first time in years the entire Birch family will be under one roof. Even Emma and Andrew’s elder daughter — who is usually off saving the world — will be joining them at Weyfield Hall, their aging country estate. But Olivia, a doctor, is only coming home because she has to. Having just returned from treating an epidemic abroad, she’s been told she must stay in quarantine for a week … and so too should her family.
For the next seven days, the Birches are locked down, cut off from the rest of humanity — and even decent Wi-Fi — and forced into each other’s orbits. Younger, unabashedly frivolous daughter Phoebe is fixated on her upcoming wedding, while her older sister, Olivia, deals with the culture shock of being immersed in first-world problems.
Their father, Andrew, sequesters himself in his study writing scathing restaurant reviews and remembering his glory days as a war correspondent. But his wife, Emma, is hiding a secret that will turn the whole family upside down.
In close proximity, not much can stay hidden for long, and as revelations and long-held tensions come to light, nothing is more shocking than the unexpected guest who’s about to arrive. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Francesca Hornak is a journalist and writer, whose work has appeared in newspapers and magazines including The Sunday Times, Guardian, Marie Claire, Red, Grazia and Stylist. Her column "History Of The World In 100 Modern Objects" first appeared in The Sunday Times Style Magazine in 2013 and ran for two years, later becoming a title with Portico. Francesca is also the author of a second non-fiction book, Worry with Mother. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Hilarity/tension ensues when a family is forced to spend a weeklong quarantine holed up together at Weyfield Hall, their aging country estate in the English countryside. Tensions are high already, but when an unexpected guest shows up, all issues are forced out into the open.
New York Post
Hornak’s smart, delightfully funny, page-turning debut takes a posh, dysfunctional British family … slaps on a week’s worth of quarantine at Christmastime, and adds…a large helping of humor.… [S]pot-on insight about human nature.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Hornak's brilliant debut manages to be simultaneously clever, funny, and poignant, as the Birch family is forced to spend an isolated week in the country during the holidays.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Alternately tender and razor-sharp, Seven Days of Us will resonate with anyone who regresses the minute they step inside their childhood home.
Booklist
Hornak skillfully juggles each character's distinct point of view and creates a family that readers will grow to love.…An emotional but ultimately uplifting holiday story.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Is there one character you relate to more than any other in this story? If so, why?
2. How well do you think Francesca Hornak captures the family dynamic of a week in quarantine over the holidays?
3. Do you think it was better/right for Andrew to conceal his one-off infidelity with Jesse’s mother? Or should he have spoken up and told Emma at the time?
4. Why did Olivia stay away from her family for so long? Have you ever experienced the feeling of not being able to be yourself with your family?
5. Discuss the sibling rivalry between Olivia and Phoebe. Why do you think we, as adults, fall into old roles when home with family? Have you experienced this?
6. What do you think kept Phoebe and George together for six years?
7. Did you empathize with the way each character reacted to Jesse’s surprise arrival? Did you empathize with Jesse?
8. Is there a moral lesson that each character takes away with them at the end of the story? If so, what is that lesson?
9. What are the main themes in the story?
10. Do you like the way the story is told from multiple points of view?
11. The end is tinged with tragedy and hope. How did the ending affect you?
12. What do you imagine or hope would happen next for each of the members of the Birch family after the closing pages of the book?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle *
Stuart Turton, 2018
Sourcebooks (US); Bloomsbury (UK)
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781492657965
Summary
Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m.
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.
We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.
Understood? Then let's begin…
Evelyn Hardcastle will die.
Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others…
The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave readers guessing until the very last page. (From the publisher.)
A television adaptation of the novel is in the works.
* The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, was published in 2018 by Bloomsbury in the UK. The book has been retitled in the US as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and published by Sourcebooks.
Author Bio
Stuart is the author of a high-concept crime novel and lives in London with his amazing wife, and drinks lots of tea.
What else?
When he left university he went travelling for three months and stayed away for five years. Every time his parents asked when he’d be back he told them next week, and meant it.
Stuart is not to be trusted. In the nicest possible way.
He’s got a degree in English and Philosophy, which makes him excellent at arguing and terrible at choosing degrees. Having trained for no particular career, he has dabbled in most of them. He stocked shelves in a Darwin bookshop, taught English in Shanghai, worked for a technology magazine in London, wrote travel articles in Dubai, and now he’s a freelance journalist. None of this was planned, he just kept getting lost on his way to other places.
He likes a chat. He likes books. He likes people who write books and people who read books. He doesn’t know how to write a biography, so should probably stop before we start talking about his dreams or something. It was lovely to meet you, though. (From DHH Literary Agency .)
Book Reviews
With time loops, body swaps and a psychopathic footman, this is a dazzling take on the murder mystery. Stuart Turton, a debut novelist, has drawn on half a dozen familiar tropes from popular culture and reworked them into something altogether fresh and memorable.… And what a pleasure it is to give oneself up to the book, to be met with discoveries and thrilling upsets at every turn in the labyrinth. Not only is nothing what it seems, it’s not even what it seems after it’s been revealed to be not what it seems.
Carrie O'Grady - Guardian (UK)
Turton’s complex debut blends mystery with Groundhog Day and Quantum Leap.… This is a complicated, twisting plot that may delight some looking for a puzzle but may leave others exasperated at the overly abstruse rules and kitchen-sink concept.
Publishers Weekly
[I]ngenious and original …[and] completely immersive…. Readers may be scratching their heads in delicious befuddlement as they work their way through this novel, but one thing will be absolutely clear: Stuart Turton is an author to remember.
Booklist
[D]izzying literary puzzle…. [A] fiendishly clever and amusing novel with explosive surprises, though in the absence of genuine feeling, it tends to keep its audience at arm's length.… [R]eaders may be hard-pressed to keep up with all its keenly calibrated twists and turns.
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.)
The Fifth Petal
Brunonia Barry, 2017
Crown/Archetype
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101905609
Summary
A spellbinding new thriller, a complex brew of suspense, seduction and murder.
When a teenage boy dies suspiciously on Halloween night, Salem's chief of police, John Rafferty, now married to gifted lace reader Towner Whitney, wonders if there is a connection between his death and Salem’s most notorious cold case, a triple homicide dubbed "The Goddess Murders."
Three young women, all descended from accused Salem witches, were slashed on Halloween night in 1989.
Rafferty finds unexpected help in Callie Cahill, the daughter of one of the victims newly returned to town. Neither believes that the main suspect, Rose Whelan, respected local historian, is guilty of murder or witchcraft.
But exonerating Rose might mean crossing paths with a dangerous force. Were the women victims of an all-too-human vengeance, or was the devil raised in Salem that night? And if they cannot discover what truly happened, will evil rise again? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Born—1950
• Where— Massachusetts, USA
• Education—Green Mountain College; University of New Hampshire
• Awards— Baccante Award-Woman’s International Fiction Festival
• Currently—lives in Salem, Massachusetts
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia Barry studied literature and creative writing at Green Mountain college in Vermont and at the University of New Hampshire and was one of the founding members of the Portland Stage Company. While still an undergraduate at UNH, Barry spent a year living in Dublin and auditing Trinity College classes on James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Barry’s love of theater led to a first job in Chicago where she ran promotional campaigns for Second City, Ivanhoe, and Studebaker theaters. After a brief stint in Manhattan, where she studied screenwriting at NYU, Barry relocated to California because she had landed an agent and had an original script optioned. Working on a variety of projects for several studios, she continued to study screenwriting and story structure with Hollywood icon Robert McKee, becoming one of the nine writers in his Development Group.
Brunonia’s love for writing and storytelling has taken her all across the country but after nearly a decade in Hollywood, Barry returned to Massachusetts where, along with her husband, she co-founded an innovative company that creates award-winning word, visual and logic puzzles. In recent years, she has written books for the "Beacon Street Girls", a fictional series for ‘tweens. Happily married, Barry lives with her husband and her only child that just happens to be a 12-year-old Golden Retriever named Byzantium. The Lace Reader was her first original novel.
Barry is the first American Writer to win the Woman’s International Fiction Festival’s 2009 Baccante Award (for The Lace Reader). Her second novel, The Map of True Places, was published in 2010. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[T]he parallels between a past crime and the present-day death of a teenage boy.... Dark and suspenseful, Barry’s well-constructed tale is filled with traps and red herrings as the truth is slowly revealed and Salem is forced to confront its sordid past.
Publishers Weekly
[T]he many suspenseful, intriguing events presented in this sort-of-sequel are sure to haunt [readers].... Banshees, lost memories, and secret pasts each play a significant role in this novel. —Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Barry fans will welcome the return of beloved characters and the introduction of new ones into a contemporary Salem appropriately fraught with remnants and reminders of its dark and twisted history. This spooky, multilayered medley of mysteries is sure to be a bestseller.
Booklist
Since the ultimate answers are supplied or at least confirmed by Callie's visions and dreams, one wonders why she couldn't have divulged these earlier, saving us all from having to turn (eagerly, it must be said) so many pages.... [F]lawed but entertaining.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Contemporary Salem is a safe haven for neo-witches, greatly enhancing the city’s tourist trade, but there are many who want to ditch the witch." Could a modern day witch hunt happen in Salem again, and, if so, what might it look like? Are witch hunts happening in other parts of the world?
2. "You know who you are, you have always been other," Rose says in her Book of Trees. In what way is each character in the book "other"? Rose later claims every culture, and every individual, harbors a prejudice against those they consider "other". Do you agree?
3. Callie longs for home and family, and particularly for a mother figure, having lost her own mother at a young age. How does Callie fulfill that dream, and at what cost?
4. Is the banshee a goddess or a monster? Its power seems to reside in a woman’s raised voice. How does that power manifest in the hands of the different characters?
5. At one point in the story, Rose tells Callie not to "court the strike." What does she mean, and why is this important to the story?
6. Social media is both a resource and a curse in the novel. The wealth of available information helps Rafferty with his case, but the opinions of anonymous posters also condemn Rose, mirroring Salem’s accusers of 1692. Discuss the positive and negative impacts of social media.
7. Brunonia Barry, who lives in Salem, is often surprised by the generational guilt the city still suffers for the 1692 witch hangings. In what ways does this manifest in the story?
8. Sound and vibration figure in The Fifth Petal, with a capacity to both hurt and heal. How does the banshee’s killer sound relate to vibration and music therapy? How does the music of the spheres that Callie hears during meditation relate to the ancient music heard in Matera?
9. Religion played a huge role in 1692 Salem, as did misogyny and fear of the unknown. Discuss Rose’s quote: "Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you think you are. Tell me what you fear, and I’ll tell you who you really are."
10. Trees symbolize both the interconnectedness of all life and the roots of humanity in this story. How does the sacred oak help Rose, and what is the significance of the Tree of Life? What does it mean to Callie in her translation of Rose’s Book of Trees?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Last Mrs. Parrish
Liv Constantine, 2017
HarperCollins
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062667571
Summary
The mesmerizing debut about a coolly manipulative woman and a wealthy "golden couple," from a stunning new voice in psychological suspense.
Some women get everything. Some women get everything they deserve.
Amber Patterson is fed up. She’s tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more — a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted.
To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne — a socialite and philanthropist — and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale.
Amber’s envy could eat her alive … if she didn't have a plan. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life — the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.
With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy, and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
Lynne Constantine
• Birth—ca. 1961
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Education—M.A., Johns Hopkins University
• Currently—Milford, Connecticut
Valerie Constantine
• Birth—ca. 1947
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Maryland
• Currently—Annapolis, Maryland and England
Liv Constantine is the pen-name of two sisters, Lynne and Valerie, who published The Last Mrs. Parrish in 2017. Born into a Greek-American family, the two have collaborated previously — on Circle Dance (2004, Rev., 2012), a novel about two sisters from a Greek American family, who, while embracing their American identity, are determined to hold on to their family's proud Greek traditions. Lynne went on to write short stories, as well as a second novel, The Veritas Deception (2016), a suspense mystery.
Thanks to technology — Skype and email — the sisters are able to live three states away from one another yet still manage to write as one to plot their novels. They attribute the dark storyline found in The Last Mrs. Parish to the hours they spent listening to their Greek grandmother spin her wonderful tales. (Adopted from the authors' joint and individual websites).
Visit Lynne's website.
Visit Valerie's website.
Book Reviews
[This] utterly irresistible novel is about a young woman named Amber Patterson, newly arrived in an ultra-rich town on Long Island Sound. The Last Mrs. Parrish pivots on an enormous and satisfying twist …the pages keep flying, flying, flying by.
USA Today
Fabulous.… I read this book in a flash, devouring every twisty delicious detail.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
This terrific, noir-steeped tale written by sisters that go by Liv Constantine actually owes more to Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley than it does to the likes of Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train.… The twists, turns and mechanizations are a devilishly delicious delight. Kind of like the brilliant television show Breaking Bad, where it’s hard to distinguish Dr. Frankenstein from the monster he created.
Providence Journal
(Starred review.) The reader watches with shock and delight as Amber cold-bloodedly manipulates Daphne and Jackson.… To say any more would spoil all the twists …[and] a surprising and entirely satisfying ending.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Readers will learn that things are not always as they seem, as they anxiously await the next bombshell.… [A] captivating … deliciously duplicitous psychological thriller. —Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights
Library Journal
The twists keep coming in this psychological roller coaster.… [T]his is a satisfying thriller that offers a window into the darker side of glamorous lives and powerful men.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Constantine's debut novel is the work of two sisters in collaboration, and these ladies definitely know the formula. A Gone Girl-esque confection with villainy and melodrama galore.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Last Mrs. Parrish … then take off on your own:
1. Start perhaps by talking about the disparity in life-styles — wealthy vs. "just-getting-by — that sets Amber off on her con job. How great are the differences in the women's lives? Amber is jealous, belieing that Daphne takes the ease and luxuries of her life for granted. Is she correct, at least in the first half of the book? Have you ever envied someone for their wealth? Of if you're wealthy, have you ever been on the receiving end of others' envy?
2. Talk about Amber's inner monologues, the ones she has, for instance, while talking to Daphne about the death of Julie. What more do the internal conversations reveal about Amber?
3. Is Daphne naive, or is Amber that convincing in her lies?
4. At what point do you begin to suspect that Amber has more to hide than the desire to break her way into the Parrish marriage? What do we learn about her past?
5. At what point, in the first half of the book, do cracks in the perfect Parrish marriage begin to evidence themselves?
6. Jackson has piercing blue eyes. Why do all fictional male hunks have dazzling orbs? Can you think of one, just one, who doesn't?
7. The book changes point of view in the second half. Were you surprised by Daphne? In what ways had you misjudged her?
8. The plot's twists and turns: did you see them coming, or were you taken by surprise? What about the ending: satisfying?
9. Inevitable comparisons are being made to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. How does this one stack up?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Valentine
Elizabeth Wetmore, 2020
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062913265
Summary
Written with the haunting emotional power of Elizabeth Strout and Barbara Kingsolver, an astonishing debut novel that explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s.
Mercy is hard in a place like this …
It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow.
In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law.
When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.
Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope.
Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader’s heart, this fierce, unflinching, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women’s strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Born—ca. 1967-1968
Raised—Odessa, Texas, USA
Education—M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Elizabeth Wetmore is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her fiction has appeared in Epoch, Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, Baltimore Review, Crab Orchard Review, Iowa Review, and other literary journals.
She is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, as well as a grant from the Barbara Deming Foundation. She was also a Rona Jaffe Scholar in Fiction at Bread Loaf and a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony, and one of six Writers in Residence at Hedgebrook.
A native of Odessa in west Texas, she lives and works in Chicago. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
This is the story of… [life] in a backwater oil town in the mid-1970s, which Wetmore seems to know with empathy so deep it aches…. Several of these chapters are masterful short stories in their own right, but Wetmore knits them together with increasing intensity…. Wetmore has written something thrilling and thoughtful. Don’t let the launch of this novelist’s career be drowned out. Someday book clubs will meet again, and this would be a rousing choice.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Valentine is an angry novel, a blast of feminist outrage against a toxic culture that breeds racism and violence against women. The narrative hurtles forward with urgency of a thriller, and it emulates the darkest spy fiction by making it painfully apparent that the good guys are… as likely as the bad guys to be punished. Elizabeth Wetmore’s… not painting a pretty picture here, but it’s palpably real, and her characters’ grit and resilience infuse the novel with a spirit of hard-won resolution…. [A] gripping, galvanizing tale from a strong new voice in American fiction.
Wendy Smith - Boston Globe
[G]ripping and complex…. Each of these women is up against inequalities and injustices, and Wetmore treats their struggles with the gravitas they deserve. But so too is her narration lively and comic, interjecting her characters’ perspectives with humor…. Wetmore delivers… a scalding critique of a… system that excuses male rapaciousness and greed…. With its deeply realized characters, moral intricacy, brilliant writing and a page-turning plot, Valentine rewards its readers’ generosity with innumerable good things in glorious abundance.
Kathleen Rooney - Chicago Tribune
Amid the harshness, Wetmore also crafts amazing beauty in the book…. [It] feels like a flower growing out of pavement… a difficult read because the inevitability of the outcomes is so depressingly predictable. Wetmore, like Harper Lee before her, has little interest in preserving the illusions of people who believe that justice and love will always prevail…. It’s an incredibly moving and emotionally devastating piece of work that heralds great things from Wetmore. There’s nothing in the pages but the world we Texans have built. If the mirror makes you uncomfortable, well, change the person in it.
Jef Rouner - Houston Chronicle
Elizabeth Wetmore's sunbaked prose can read more like a writer's rich imagination than real life, but as the story goes on it becomes a monument to a sort of singular grace, and true grit.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review) Stirring…. Wetmore poetically weaves the landscape of Odessa and the internal lives of her characters, whose presence remains vivid after the last page is turned. This moving portrait of West Texas oil country… [features] strong, memorable female voices.
Publishers Weekly
Drawing comparisons to Barbara Kingsolver and Wallace Stegner, Wetmore writes with an evidently innate wisdom about the human spirit. With deep introspection, she expertly unravels the complexities between men, women, and the land they inhabit. Achingly powerful, this story will resonate with readers long after having finished it.
Booklist
(Starred review) [H]arrowing, heartfelt…. As these women navigate what is decidedly a man’s world with feminine grace, Valentine becomes a testament to the resilience of the female spirit. Wetmore’s prose is both beautiful and bone-true.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
1. Consider the Texas landscape as it is richly described throughout the novel. What varying moods does it create? How does it affect the characters and their stories?
2. Why does Gloria change her name to Glory? What’s powerful about the names we use?
3. Gloria’s Tío Victor claims that "every story is a war story." What might he mean?
4. When throughout the novel does listening prove powerful and transformative? When is a failure to listen to someone’s story harmful?
5. In what ways is a violent, misogynistic man like Dale Strickland entitled and empowered by others, his town, and the culture at large?
6. What smaller, daily harms are done with impunity to the women in the novel? How does such behavior—often dismissed as harmless—reflect and affect larger value systems?
7. Mary Rose Whitehead is criticized by her own husband for helping Glory. Why is this? How is it that her decision to help and protect an abused girl and later testify in court is so offensive to many in the town, even the Ladies Guild?
8. How does Corrine Shepard address her grief over Potter’s death? What significance do you make of the cat that keeps "coming into [Corrine’s] backyard and killing everything"?
9. Why do you think Corrine initially refuses to help Mary Rose? How and why does her attitude change?
10. What is valuable for each in the secret friendship between Debra Ann and Jesse Belden? What do they understand about each other?
11. In what ways is the bookmobile important, particularly to Debra Ann? What might Debra Ann mean when she tells Jesse that "Every book has at least one good thing"?
12. Ginny’s grandmother told her many stories about women who died trying to do all that was expected of them? What is the value or burden of such narratives? What story is Ginny trying to write, and is it connected to her decision to leave Odessa? Did you expect her to return?
13. One lesson Suzanne Ledbetter imparts to her daughter is to "never depend on a man to take care of you” not even one as good as your daddy." Why is this so important? What are the obstacles to economic power for women in the novel? Which of those still exists in some form today?
14. What is valuable to Corrine about the occasional "misfit or dreamer" present in her high school English class over her thirty years of teaching? What might she mean when she emphasizes to them that "stories save lives"?
15. Corrine vehemently expresses to Potter how unfulfilling stay-at-home motherhood is for her. What does a fuller life look like for her and the other mothers in the novel?
16. Jumping from the high dive at the YMCA pool for the first time, Aimee and Debra Ann feel like they "can do anything" and "their faith is rooted in their bodies, the muscle and sinew and bone that holds them together and says move." How is this different from what is so often expected of the bodies of girls and women?
17. What are the significant themes in the story Debra Ann tells Jesse about the old rancher’s wife and her extraordinary garden?
18. What explains the profound and unjust opinion?ruling in Dale Strickland’s trial? What are the potential emotional effects of such injustice? What are the most effective ways to respond and survive?
19. Karla Sibley’s experience waiting tables a tthe bar suggests that to speak up against the generational legacy of male entitlement, violence against women, and racism "would require courage that we cannot even begin to imagine." What then is to be done about such oppressive forces? How does Karla respond to them?
20. Tío Victor eventually decides against vengeance on Dale Strickland because "nothing causes more suffering." What might he mean? Is Dale sufficiently punished by the novel’s end, in your opinion?
21. In what ways has Glory begun to heal? Though her scars "tether her to a single morning," what is her relationship to her body as she drives toward her mother in Mexico? What will it take for her to continue to heal?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)