Love, Hate and Other Filters
Samira Ahmed, 2017
Soho Teen
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616958473
Summary
In this unforgettable debut novel, an Indian-American Muslim teen copes with Islamophobia, cultural divides among peers and parents, and a reality she can neither explain nor escape.
American-born seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds.
There’s the proper one her parents expect for their good Indian daughter: attending a college close to their suburban Chicago home, and being paired off with an older Muslim boy her mom deems “suitable.”
And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school and living in New York City—and maybe (just maybe) pursuing a boy she’s known from afar since grade school, a boy who’s finally falling into her orbit at school.
There’s also the real world, beyond Maya’s control.
In the aftermath of a horrific crime perpetrated hundreds of miles away, her life is turned upside down. The community she’s known since birth becomes unrecognizable; neighbors and classmates alike are consumed with fear, bigotry, and hatred. Ultimately, Maya must find the strength within to determine where she truly belongs. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1971-72
• Where—Bombay, India
• Raised—Batavia, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., M.T.A., University of Chicago
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Samira Ahmed is and American-Indian author, born in Bombay, India, and raised in Batavia, Illinois—growing up in a house scented with the seasonings and spices of India. At the age of eight, while sitting in a car, a man tapped on the window and yelled, "Go home you goddamned fucking Iranian!" It was a racist incident that has haunted her over the years and became the inspiration for her 2017 novel, Love, Hate and Other Filters.
Ahmed attended the University of Chicago, earning both a Bachelor's and Master's of Teaching degree. After graduating, she taught high school English for seven years. She also spent for several years working with two non-profit groups—New Visions for Public Schools and Campaign for Fiscal Equity—attempting to establish 70 smaller high schools in New York City and to obtain additional public school funding from New York State.
Ahmed has appeared in the New York Times and New York Daily News, and on Fox News, NBC, National Public Radio, NY1, and on BBC Radio. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in Jaggery Lit and Entropy.
She currently resides in the Chicago, Illinois. (Adapted from various online souces.)
Book Reviews
Ahmed authentically and expertly tells a story relevant to today's climate. More than that, it's a meaningful #OwnVoices book about identity and inner strength that everyone should absolutely read.
Buzzfeed
Heartfelt.… Ahmed deftly and incisively explores the complicated spaces between "American and Indian and Muslim" in modern America.
Teen Vogue
This intriguing coming-of-age debut will rival Thomas’s The Hate U Give with its sensitive and must-read tale of an Indian-American Muslim teen and her battle with Islamophobia.
HuffPost
An entertaining coming-of-age story that tackles Islamophobia.
Paste Magazine
(Starred review.) In an astute debut, Ahmed intertwines a multicultural teen’s story with a spare, dark depiction of a young terrorist’s act. The characters are fully dimensional and credible, lending depth to even lighter moments and interactions. Alternately entertaining and thoughtful, the novel is eminently readable, intelligent, and timely
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Maya's voice is pitch-perfect; funny, warm, and perfectly teenaged. Sweet and smart with a realistic but hopeful ending, this novel is a great examination of how hatred and fear affects both communities, and individual lives. —Beth McIntyre, Madison Public Library, WI
School Library Journal
The book is wonderfully constructed. Maya’s voice is authentic, providing readers with insight into her life as an American Muslim teenager.… readers will find much to digest here and will be totally engrossed from page one.
VOYA
(Starred review.) Ahmed crafts a winning narrator—Maya is insightful, modern, and complex, her shoulders weighted by the expectations of her parents and the big dreams she holds for herself. Brief interstitials spread evenly throughout the text key readers into the attack looming ahead, slowly revealing the true figure behind its planning with exceptional compassion. Utterly readable, important, and timely.
Booklist
High school senior Maya Aziz works up the courage to tell her parents that she's gotten into the film school of her dreams in New York City, but their expectations combined with anti-Muslim backlash from a terror attack threaten to derail her dream.… A well-crafted plot with interesting revelations about living as a secular Muslim teen in today's climate. (Ages 13-18)
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 Love, Hate and Other Filters … then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Maya? Do you admire her … find fault with her … or what? Were you suprised by her final act of rebellion; does it seem out of character?
2. How do Maya's dreams clash with her parents' aspirations for her? Are those contradictions typical of most adolescents and their parents? Or are they perhaps more intense among immigrants who want their children to assimilate yet still maintain ties to their ancestral culture?
3. Maya's narrative alternates with interludes of the troubled young man who commits the Springfield killings. How did you feel reading those passages? Did their display of hate and racism unsettle you, even spur you to consider your own preconceived ideas? If you are an immigrant living in a country with a different culture from your previous country, does the depiciton of prejudice in Ahmed's novel ring true to you?
4. Talk about the attack in Springfield and its affect, physically and emotionally, on Maya and her family.
5. Discuss the role Hini plays in Maya's life. What has Hini sacrificed in her pursuit of independence? What does she offer her niece in terms of Maya's own future?
6. Consider the book's title, especially the word "filters"—obviously drawn from Maya's fascination with film and cameras. How does Maya use filters in her daily life? Do you have filters in your own life?
7. Phil … or Kareem? Who are you rooting for? To what degree is Phil responsible for Brian?
8. What do you think of Violet and her fierce protectiveness of Maya? Thinking back on your own life, have you ever had a friend like Violet … or been a friend like Violet?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Other Bennet Sister
Janice Hadlow, 2020
Henry Holt & Company
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250129413
Summary
Mary, the bookish ugly duckling of Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a desired woman with choices of her own.
What if Mary Bennet’s life took a different path from that laid out for her in Pride and Prejudice?
What if the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who takes refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters?
This is the plot of Janice Hadlow's The Other Bennet Sister, a debut novel with exactly the affection and authority to satisfy Jane Austen fans.
Ultimately, Mary’s journey is like that taken by every Austen heroine. She learns that she can only expect joy when she has accepted who she really is. She must throw off the false expectations and wrong ideas that have combined to obscure her true nature and prevented her from what makes her happy.
Only when she undergoes this evolution does she have a chance at finding fulfillment; only then does she have the clarity to recognize her partner when he presents himself—and only at that moment is she genuinely worthy of love.
Mary’s destiny diverges from that of her sisters. It does not involve broad acres or landed gentry. But it does include a man; and, as in all Austen novels, Mary must decide whether he is the truly the one for her.
In The Other Bennet Sister, Mary is a fully rounded character—complex, conflicted, and often uncertain; but also vulnerable, supremely sympathetic, and ultimately the protagonist of an uncommonly satisfying debut novel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Janice Hadlow worked at the BBC for more than two decades, and for ten of those years she ran BBC Two and BBC Four, two of the broadcaster’s major television channels. She was educated at Swanley School in Kent and graduated with a first class degree in history from King’s college, London.
Hadlow is the author of A Royal Experiment (2014), a biography of Great Britain's King George III. She currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Other Bennet Sister (2020) is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Satisfyingly evocative of [Pride and Prejudice] and yet strikingly contemporary…. Hadlow grafts a contemporary coming-of-age story onto a literary masterpiece… building upon what Austen had achieved—writing boldly and honestly about women’s lives.
Christian Science Monitor
Gorgeous… a wonderfully, warm, comforting read—perfect on a winter’s night.
Sun (UK)
Impeccably researched, this lifts Mary from obscurity, as she breaks out of her mother's world and follows her own path.
Daily Mail (UK)
An immersive and engaging new version of a familiar world… at once true to the source material and to life…. Hadlow’s great achievement is to shift our sympathies so completely that… it’s difficult not to race through those final pages, desperate to know if [Mary] will, after all, be allowed―will allow herself―a happy ending.
Guardian (UK)
If you thought Mary, the nerdy, plain sibling in Pride & Prejudice, was too dull to warrant her own novel, think again: In Hadlow’s imaginative retelling, the sister with no prospects finally gets some respect―and perhaps even a guy.
Oprah Magazine
(Starred review) [S]pectacular…. Writing in prose with the crisp liveliness of Austen's own, Hadlow remains true to the characterizations in Pride and Prejudice without letting them limit her…. This will delight Janeites as well as lovers of nuanced female coming-of-age tales.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Delightful…. This is a charming and enchanting story… [that readers of Pride and Prejudice] will love, as will historical fiction readers looking for intelligent heroines with agency and heart. —Marlene Harris, Reading Reality, LLC, Duluth, GA
Library Journal
(Starred review) Absolutely magical…. It is a marvel that The Other Bennet Sister is [Hadlow’s] first novel. Her writing is elegant and wry, the story wise and engrossing.
Booklist
(Starred review) A…smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary…. Hadlow traces [Mary's] progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism[ that] Austen would have relished. Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
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 OTHER BENNET SISTER … then take off on your own:
1. When the novel opens, how does Mary Bennet in The Other Bennet Sister compare to Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice? (See question #8.)
2. In this story, we view the Bennet family through Mary's point of view. How does this viewpoint change your perception of the Bennet family? Or does it? What about Jane, Elizabeth, Kitty, and Lydia—again, as seen through Mary's eyes? Are they different from Austen's original characterizations? Consider, especially, Elizabeth, the heroine of Pride and Prejudice: is she still as admirable as she was in P & P?
3. (Follow-up to Question 2) How have the Bennet family dynamics molded Mary into the person she is at the beginning of the novel? Consider, especially, her relationship to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet? Consider, also, the sisters, to which she forms a sort of "fifth wheel" with regards to the Jane-Elizabeth and Kitty-Lydia pairings.
4. How would you describe the personality that lies beneath Mary Bennet's unassuming exterior? What are her desires and passions? What does she want, or need, out of life? How determined is she to fulfill those wants?
5. Homeless, once her father dies, Mary must depend on the kindness of others. Consider the Gardiner household: how does the family differ from the one she grew up in? What do the Gardiners place value on—as opposed to the qualities the Bennet family values?
6. In P & P, Charlotte Lucas is Elizabeth's friend, who also serves as a foil for Elizabeth. She marries Mr. Collins, settling for a lesser man than Elizabeth is willing to. What role does Charlotte play in the The Other Bennet Sister?
7. While Janice Hadlow has written a modern coming-of-age story, how has she remained faithful to Austen's original work—its style, voice, and the way it echoes of the social mores of the early 1800s?
8. (Follow-up to Question 1) How does Mary Bennet emerge by the end of the book? What has she learned? What has she gained? How has she grown?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
This Love Story Will Self-Destruct
Leslie Cohen, 2018
Gallery Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501168536
Summary
This is the classic tale of boy meets girl: Girl … goes home with someone else.
Meet Eve. She’s a dreamer, a feeler, a careening well of sensitivities who can’t quite keep her feet on the ground, or steer clear of trouble. She’s a laugher, a crier, a quirky and quick-witted bleeding-heart-worrier.
Meet Ben. He’s an engineer, an expert at leveling floors who likes order, structure, and straight lines. He doesn’t opine, he doesn’t ruminate, he doesn’t simmer until he boils over.
So naturally, when the two first cross paths, sparks don’t exactly fly. But then they meet again. And again. And then, finally, they find themselves with a deep yet fragile connection that will change the course of their relationship—possibly forever.
Follow Eve and Ben as they navigate their twenties on a winding journey through first jobs, first dates, and first breakups; through first reunions, first betrayals and, maybe, first love. This is When Harry Met Sally reimagined; a charming tale told from two unapologetically original points of view.
With an acerbic edge and heartwarming humor, debut novelist Leslie Cohen takes us on a tour of what life looks like when it doesn’t go according to plan, and explores the complexity, chaos, and comedy in finding a relationship built to last. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Leslie Cohen was born and raised in New York. She studied fiction at Columbia University, and wrote a weekly music column for a newspaper in Colorado before working in publishing for several years. This is her debut novel (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Leslie Cohen beautifully demonstrates a profound truth about growing up.… It's a book about the journey, not the destination. It's about the changes within. It's about a woman finding the courage and strength she needs to become who she is meant to be. While reading it, I found that maybe I could find the courage to accept my past—the parts that are gone and the parts that remain—and forge ahead on my new path.
Melissa Ragsdale - Bustle.com
What’s better than love at first sight? A surprise romance, growing over time. This is a Big Apple confection worthy of its dazzling backdrop.
People
When Harry Met Sally for a new generation, with all the humor, heart, and smarts that writing neo-Ephron entails
Booklist
(Starred review.) Although this is Eve and Ben's love story, it's also an ode to New York City, an exploration of loss, a rumination on 9/11's effects on a generation, and a tale of two people navigating their 20s. [E]dgy, …full of humor and wit.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Cohen introduces us to the impassioned, quirky Eve in the opening chapters of the novel, before revealing her tragic past. How did your impression of Eve evolve as you learned her backstory?
2. One could argue that New York City is the third protagonist in this novel, one whose characteristics shift dramatically at various points in the story. Eve’s description of living in the city ranges from "feeling like an ant trapped amid a towering maze of buildings, waiting for a giant shoe to crush you to death" (pg. 109) to the "damn city fit like a glove" (pg. 118). How does the setting both impact and reflect the characters’ emotional states throughout the novel?
3. On pg. 169, Ben says to Eve, "We’ve come into each other’s lives over and over again, and that’s fine. No big deal. But because we have, we begin to feel a destiny with each other." Discuss the moments of serendipity that connect Ben and Eve. Do you think these coincidences are random, or are they, as Ben believes, a matter of "synchronicity"?
4. What do you make of Ben’s decision not to immediately tell Eve about the connection between his father and her mother? How would you have handled the situation?
5. Discuss the significance of Eve’s mother dying on 9/11. Do you think Eve’s experience of this significant loss would be different if it were not linked to such a public, large-scale tragedy?
6. On pg. 248, Jesse tells Eve that she’s in love with Ben because she’s "desperate to feel that way." Do you agree with this statement? If so, does it minimize Eve’s relationship with Ben?
7. While discussing his job on pg. 136, Ben says "there is a certain satisfaction in bringing order to the ideas." How does this sentiment hold true in his relationship with Eve? Ultimately, do you think Ben helps Eve bring order to her life, or does she accomplish this on her own?
8. Both the novel's opening and closing scenes take place in Eve's apartment. How does her definition of "home" change over the years? What major turning points shape her perceptions about where she lives, and where she wants to live?
9. On pg. 1, Eve recounts, "It was the journey that made it happen. No sense regretting the stops along the way." Ben echoes her on pg. 313, claiming that "you couldn’t fully appreciate a sunny day unless you’d come in from a storm." Do you agree with them? Has this statement held true at any point in your life?
10. Reread the prologue and discuss how your interpretation has changed now that you’ve finished the book. Would you consider either Ben or Eve reliable narrators in these opening passages?
11. What future do you envision for Ben and Eve beyond the last page of the book?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Shiner
Amy Jo Burns, 2020
Penguin Publishing
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525533641
Summary
On a lush mountaintop trapped in time, two women vow to protect each other at all costs-and one young girl must defy her father to survive.
An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors-except for her mother's lifelong best friend.
Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community, over Wren and her mother.
But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren's father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father's mysterious legend and her mother's harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend.
And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect.
Rich with epic love and epic loss, and diving deep into a world that is often forgotten but still part of America, Shiner reveals the hidden story behind two generations' worth of Appalachian heartbreak and resolve.
Amy Jo Burns brings us a smoldering, taut debut novel about modern female myth-making in a land of men-and one young girl who must ultimately open her eyes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Amy Jo Burns is the author of the memoir Cinderland (2014) and most recently Shiner (2020). Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Ploughshares, Gay Magazine, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and The Paris Review Daily, as well as the anthology Not That Bad. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[L]ayered, evocative debut… [While] the recursive structure… [makes] it difficult for readers to fully connect with… characters, Burns beautifully renders [their]… desperation. Burns stunning prose is reason enough to keep an eye out for this promising writer’s next effort.
Publishers Weekly
It's tough enough for 15-year-old Wren Bird to live in a mountaintop cabin with no car and no visitors… even as her father… spends his Sunday spouting sermons…and handling snakes.… [A] supposed miracle performed by Wren's father leads to tragedy, making her examine her family history.
Library Journal
(Starred review) This gorgeously written, plot-rich novel examines the complex lives of five beautifully realized characters…. [T]he novel is also about story and its gradual morphing into legend…. This memorable… novel is exceptional in its power and imagination… a must-read.
Booklist
(Starred review) In an Appalachian hamlet, a girl’s world is shattered by the secrets of the adults around her.… Wren’s engaging, convincing voice leads the reader through her strange world. [This] teenage girl is the strong center of a fever-dream story of hidden pasts.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Shiner centers on the stories of three women—Wren; her mother, Ruby; and Ruby’s best friend, Ivy—living on an isolated mountain in coal country. The opening line of the novel is: "Making good moonshine isn’t that different from telling a good story, and no one tells a story like a woman." What is Shiner saying about the power of storytelling, and in particular, about the importance of women’s voices?
2. Early in the novel, Ivy tells Wren, "Weddings are funerals. Don’t you dare dream of them." In what ways have Ivy’s and Ruby’s lives been hampered by the men they have chosen to marry? Discuss the factors that led them to make those particular choices. How does each of them express regret? How does their regret affect Wren?
3. Shiner is also about the power of female friendship. How do Ivy and Ruby model closeness and mutuality? How does their connection sustain them across decades? In what ways has their friendship changed the course of their lives, for better or worse?
4. When did you begin to suspect that there was more to Briar’s miracles than meets the eye? Discuss how Shiner interrogates the power of belief. How does the legend of Briar’s white eye contribute to his status in the community? Whose belief matters most to Briar, and why?
5. The natural world plays a large part in the novel. Compare and contrast how the town of Trap and the mountain are portrayed. What dangers lurk in each place, and what beauties? Which characters believe the natural world can be tamed? Which are enthralled by its power?
6. How does Wren learn and grow from her relationship with Caleb? What does he teach her about the world beyond her mountain, and what does she teach him about her own culture and way of life?
7. Flynn Sherrod makes moonshine in the dark, keeping his craft a secret from the law. In what ways is his moonshine a metaphor for the secrets he is compelled to keep throughout the book? How do these secrets protect the people he cares for most? What is the cost of keeping these secrets, to the other characters and to Flynn himself?
8. Consider the adult men in Shiner—Flynn, Briar, Hasil, Noble, and Ricky. What accounts for the differences between them and for the ways they relate to women? What about the young men—Caleb, Sonny, and Ivy’s sons?
9. Discuss the fates of the three main women in the novel, Ivy, Ruby, and Wren. How has Wren changed by the end of the story? What do you think about her choice to remain on the mountain? In what ways will her life be different from that of her mother, or of Ivy?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)
The Hazel Wood (Hazel Wood Series, 1)
Melissa Albert, 2018
Flatiron Books
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250147905
Summary
Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels.
But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: Her mother is stolen away—by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set.
Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: "Stay away from the Hazel Wood."
Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her.
To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began—and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1984-85 (?)
• Raised—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia College of Chicago
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, NY
Melissa Albert is the founding editor of the Barnes & Noble Teen Blog and the managing editor of BN.com. She has written for McSweeney’s, Time Out Chicago, MTV, and more. Melissa is from Illinois and lives in Brooklyn. The Hazel Wood (2018) is her first novel; Night Country (2020) is its sequel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [A] tantalizing tale of secret histories and magic that carries costs and consequences. There is no happily-ever-after resolution except this: Alice’s hard-won right to be in charge of her own story (Ages 12–up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The lilting structure and deliberate tone bring to mind fairy tales…while also hinting at the teeth this story will bear in the form of murder, mayhem, and violence both in the Hinterland tales and in Alice's reality.… [E]mpowering. (Gr. 9-up) —Emma Carbone, Brooklyn Public Library
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Highly literary, occasionally surreal, and grounded by Alice’s clipped, matter-of-fact voice, The Hazel Wood is a dark story that readers will have trouble leaving behind. The buzz for this debut is deafening, and the fact that the film adaption is already in the works doesn’t hurt.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Simultaneously wondrous and horrific, dreamlike and bloody, lyrical and creepy, exquisitely haunting and casually, brutally cruel. Not everybody lives, and certainly not "happily ever after"—but within all the grisly darkness, Alice's fierce integrity and hard-won self-knowledge shine unquenched.
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 HAZEL WOOD … then take off on your own:
1. What do you make of Alice—her explosive anger, rudeness, even cruelty? Does she grow on you? Do you perhaps come to care what happens to her? Does what we finally learn of Alice's past adequately explain—maybe even excuse—her offensive behavior?
2. How would you describe the mother-daughter relationship between Ella and Alice. Alice herself calls it a "symbiotic relationship that looks cute on TV but felt fucking exhausting when you're moving for the third time in a year…." What are they running from, precisely?
3. Why has Ella kept Alice apart from Althea, never permitting Alice to read Tales from the Hinterland nor visit her grandmother? Ella's note orders Alice to "stay away from Hazel Wood." Why?
4. How does Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood compare with standard fairy tales … even some of the more recent re-tellings?
5. Ellery Finch says of Tales from the Hinterland, the fairy tales within the fairy tale:
There are no lessons … just this harsh, horrible world … where shitty things happen. And they don't happen for a reason, or in threes, or in a way that looks like justice. They're set it a place that has no rules and doesn't want any.
What does it say about Ellery that he has such affection for these stories—stories in which random cruelty takes place and where there is no rhyme or reason for any of it?
6. How do you respond to Alice's disregard for Ellery's concerns about race and racial profiling? Does the fact that he grew up in a wealthy family make the color of his skin unimportant? Is Ellery more "privileged" than Alice, who grew up without money?
7. What do you think of Althea's Tales from the Hinterland—especially the two stories Ellery recounts? What light do they shed on the events within The Hazel Wood? Are you hoping Melissa Albert will publish a complete volume of Tales on its own?
8. The Hazel Wood is peppered with allusions to other famous fairy tales. How do they inform the action/plot line within Albert's novel?
9. What does Melissa Albert's novel suggest about the power of words? Consider this passage:
Once upon a time there was a beautiful queen who thought words were stronger than anything. She used them to win love and money and gifts. She used them to carry her across the world.
10. Were you as confused as Alice seems to be on the journey she undertakes with Ellery? In fact, were you confused generally throughout the novel, as some readers say they were? Overall, how did you experience The Hazel Wood? Was it what you expected … or something different?
11. And the novel's ending—what do you think?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)