Davenport Public Library’s Comments (group member since Feb 16, 2024)

Davenport Public Library’s comments from the Online Reading Challenge group.

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on young adult literature. Our main title for September is The Cousins by Karen McManus. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know each another, and they’ve never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they’re surprised . . . and curious.

Their parents are all clear on one point–not going is not an option. This could be the opportunity to get back into Grandmother’s good graces. But when the cousins arrive on the island, it’s immediately clear that she has different plans for them. And the longer they stay, the more they realize how mysterious–and dark–their family’s past is.

The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn’t over–and this summer, the cousins will learn everything. - Delacorte Press

Looking for some other young adult literature? Try any of the following.

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
By Your Side by Kasie West
Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed
The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson
Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
Scythe by Neal Shusterman

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a classic? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. Published in 1956, Giovanni's Room is the story of David, a young man living in Paris in the 1950s. Waiting for his fiancée Hella to return from a trip to Spain, David starts an affair with an Italian bartender named Giovanni. Said affair spans several months. Giovanni is passionate and clever, but something seems off. Soon the two find themselves living together in Giovanni's small room. David begins to feel stifled, while Giovanni repeatedly says that he won't survive if David leaves him. During this time, David reflects on a homosexual affair he had in his adolescence and the impulses he has been struggling to repress for years. David is caught in a conflict between heterosexual and homosexual love, between desire and conventional morality. When Hella returns, David again struggles with the life he envisions for himself (and Hella) and with his homosexuality. The three impacted parties (Giovanni, David, and Hella) are humans with flaws whose decisions end up altering their lives forever.

I chose to listen to the audiobook narrated by Matt Bomer with an introduction by Kevin Young, but I highly recommend you read this book in any format that you can get your hands on. The writing style and imagery are gorgeous. The prose was laden with love, highlighting a depth of emotion portrayed beautifully throughout the book. Although I enjoyed the book, the main character was decidedly not my favorite and was hard to love. David was incredibly selfish, only worried about himself, and unlikable. The relationships he was in were toxic, but I had hopes throughout that David would grow by the end. Sadly, he did not. I had a rough time getting through this book, but I'm glad I did as it hooked me in completely with about 45 minutes left in the story. If this is on your to-read list, give it a go and let me know what you think.

Next month, we will be reading young adult literature!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on classics. Our main title for August is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.

David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.

David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. - Vintage

Looking for some other classics? Try any of the following.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Beloved by Toni Morrison
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Emma by Jane Austen
Little Women by Louisa Alcott
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read domestic fiction? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg. When I was picking out a domestic fiction title to read for this month, All This Could Be Yours caught my attention as it was described as 'Big Little Lies meets Succession'. Intriguing, right? Jami Attenberg was also described as 'the queen of dysfunctional families,' which also caught my eye! Let's get into what the book was about and my thoughts.

Alex Tuchman has been summoned by her mother to her father's deathbed. He has suffered from a heart attack and the results aren't good. As she travels to New Orleans to be with her family, Alex reflects on her life growing up. She decides that now is the time to confront her tight-lipped mother Barbra about her father Victor, his secrets, and why they stayed together for so long. Barbra is not ready to answer Alex's questions, but her questions force her to reflect on the tumult she and Victor went through. Barbra and Alex are left picking up the pieces because Alex's brother Gary has disappeared. He's gone quiet and is across the country in Los Angeles working on his movie career. Gary's wife Twyla is left behind in New Orleans dealing with his family. This family is incredibly dysfunctional. Each family member, plus some outside people, are dragged into dealing with Victor's complicated history. Even though they are not close, each person will have to figure out how they will move on after Victor eventually passes.

All This Could Be Yours is a multi-generational drama told through flashbacks in time. Each member of the family tells their story, plus some random side characters that are also somehow connected to the family. At times I was confused about why certain people were talking and how their stories were relevant. I also found myself wanting to learn more about the family dysfunction and how they ended up the way they are. I spent most of the book wondering what the point was because even though you learn about each family member and their lies, there isn't a real plot. This title felt on the verge of greatness, but didn't quite make it there for me.

Next month, we will be reading classics!

Welcome readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on domestic fiction, also known as domestic realism. This genre focuses on everyday lives of ordinary people, particularly the domestic sphere that focuses on families and communities. It strives to show a realistic portrayal of ordinary life in a straightforward way. Our main title for July is All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father, Victor, is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister—feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra.

As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drugstores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As family members grapple with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.

All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can entangle a family for generations, and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free. With her signature “sparkling prose” (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age. - Ecco

Looking for some other domestic fiction? Try any of the following.

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Falling Home by Karen White
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
The Guest Book by Sarah Blake
What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go for June? Did you read queer fiction? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. This national bestseller has won many awards, was featured on many publication lists, and was longlisted for other prizes. With these high accolades, this was an easy queer fiction pick for June.

Here's a short summary before I discuss my thoughts. Detransition, Baby is the story of Reese and Amy and what they each want out of life. Reese has created the life that she has always dreamed of: a gorgeous apartment in New York City, a job she enjoys, and a loving stable relationship with Amy. As a trans woman, this life is full of things that she never thought herself worthy of, but one thing has always been missing: a child. Just when Amy and Reese start the process to have a child, their relationship explodes. Amy detransitions and become Ames and the life they know is over. Flash forward and neither Ames nor Reese are happy. When Ames' partner, his boss Katrina, announces that she's pregnant, Ames realizes that this baby is the way to get Reese back into his life. Ames, Reese, and Katrina start an awkward dance to figure out if this unconventional family will work.

The exploration that the author makes into each characters' life was eye-opening. Each character is forced to confront their thoughts about sex, motherhood, and gender, to examine the messy corners of what it truly means to be a woman. The author isn't afraid to discuss the uncomfortable, which I enjoyed. When I started Detransition, Baby, the writing and pacing hooked me. I could tell that the author was sincere in their writing, that nothing was written without a lot of thought, although some sections were a bit wordy. While I loved certain characters, others were unlikeable, which is honestly true of most books. The book's ending also caught me completely off guard. If you read this book, I would love to know your opinion! Please let me know in the comments.

Next month, we will be reading domestic fiction!

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on queer fiction. Our main title for June is Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she’s pregnant with his baby—and that she’s not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can’t reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel. - One World

Looking for some other queer fiction? Try any of the following.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Yerba Buena by Nina Lacour
Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a graphic novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. (Actually this was a re-read for me.) Personally, I feel Persepolis should be required reading for all people as it deals with difficult subjects, but also bears witness to history that should never be ignored.

Marjane Satrapi is the daughter of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor. Her childhood is threaded through with the history of her country, Iran. Satrapi grew up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. In Persepolis, she talks about the Iranian experience from the 1950s through the late 1970s. The overthrow of Mossadeq and the seating and unseating of the Shah take place during this time. She also witnesses the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the effects of war with Iraq. Satrapi's parents aren't afraid to sit her down to give a lesson on history especially when she asks questions or says something that catches them off guard. In addition to the history talks, Satrapi details daily life in Iran and the many contradictions between her home life and public life.

Persepolis is told in black-and-white comic strip images which add to the harshness of her stories and to the seriousness of war and political repression. The first time I read this book, I remember being struck by the vivid descriptions of her childhood and her family. This graphic novel was first published in English in 2003, so I was just starting my teens when I read it for the first time. I was close in age to Satrapi (she is ages six to fourteen in this book), but our childhoods were incredibly different. It's difficult for me to distill my feelings about Persepolis into a couple paragraphs. Please pass this graphic novel to someone in your life. Maybe they'll get something out of it that will change their lives just like it changed mine.

Next month, we will be reading queer fiction!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on graphic novels. Our main title for May is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love. - Pantheon

Looking for some other graphic novels? Try any of the following.

Child Star: Hollywood Makes You Grow Up Fast by Box Brown
Cook Korean! : A Comic Book with Recipes by Robin Ha
Go to Sleep (I Miss You): Cartoons from the Fog of New Parenthood by Lucy Knisley
Joseph Smith and the Mormons by Noah Van Sciver
The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History by David Walker
The Body Factory: From the First Prosthetics to the Augmented Human by Heloise Chochois
The Hidden Life of Trees: A Graphic Adaptation by Frederic Bernard
Shubiek Lubeik by Dina Muhammad
Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History by Nic Watts
Under the Banner of King Death: Pirate of the Atlantic by David Lester
Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a coming of age, or bildungsroman, novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I went into this book not knowing much about it, other than it was a coming of age book, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of the New York Times 10 best books of the year. When I was selecting books for the Online Reading Challenge, I wanted to pick books that were outside the norm of what I would normally read and this sure fit that mold. The Topeka School won many accolades and awards, but I can honestly say that I would not have picked this book up on my own had it not been for the Online Reading Challenge.

Set in the American Midwest, this family drama begins in the 1990s with Adam Gordon, a senior at Topeka High School, the class of 1997. His parents both work at a psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas that attracts patients from all over the world. His mother Jane is a famous author, while his father Jonathan is known for his ability to get lost young boys to open up. Jane's book angers some members of the public who take out their outrage on Jane and her family by harassing them. Outside of school, Adam is a debater, who people expect to win a national championship. Despite his status on the debate team, Adam is one of the cool kids. He and his friends are told by their parents to be friendly to Darren Eberheart, a loner who also happens to be a patient of Adam's father. Darren is awkward and his entrance into their social circle ends in a catastrophe.

While the summary I laid out above seems pretty straight-forward, the formatting of this book is anything but. The Topeka School shifts between time periods, perspectives, and narrators, which turned confusing. While I enjoyed the multiple perspectives, the jump in timelines made it difficult to know just where we were at in the story. The plot did end up making sense towards the end, but honestly I was so turned around in the middle that at parts I contemplated giving up. This book covers heavy topics: toxic masculinity, marital transgressions, abuse, public speech, and struggle for identity. Lerner isn't afraid to pile on more and more topics within the changing timelines, but honestly the writing was so dense that I had trouble picking through to find the bones of the story. The characters are complex, somewhat dysfunctional, and written with an introspective feel. To me, this book was a complex web of stories, characters, and topics presented with dense language that I had trouble paying attention to for long periods of time. My main tip for reading this book: read small pieces at a time. Doing so made this book easier for me, even though it took me much longer to read it! All in all, I'm glad I read it, but it's a 3 of 5 stars.

Next month, we will be reading a graphic novel!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on coming of age, also known as bildungsroman. Our main title for April is The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting “lost boys” to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart—who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father’s patient—into the social scene, to disastrous effect.

Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, The Topeka School is the story of a family, its struggles and its strengths: Jane’s reckoning with the legacy of an abusive father, Jonathan’s marital transgressions, the challenge of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity. It is also a riveting prehistory of the present: the collapse of public speech, the trolls and tyrants of the New Right, and the ongoing crisis of identity among white men. - Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Looking for some other coming of age or bildungsroman? Try any of the following.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Maame by Jessica George
Nightcrawling by Lelia Mottley
Normal People by Sally Rooney
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
White Ivy by Susan Yang

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a biographical fiction novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. This book has been on my to-read list since its publication in 2018.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on interviews that were conducted with Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov, a Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist. Lale’s voice is present throughout this book, something that I felt added to the depth, despair, and hope. Based on the true story of Lale and Gita, Heather Morris weaves the stories of two Slovokian Jews who survived the Holocaust with great care. As someone who has read dozens of Holocaust stories, both fiction and nonfiction, this book stands out to me. The emotions radiated through the pages, pulling me into their lives as they struggled to survive. Readers follow Lale as he is forced to Auschwitz-Birkenau in April 1942. His ability to speak multiple languages lands him a job as the tattooist, forced to permanently mark his fellow prisoners. Lale witnesses horrors for almost three years in the camps, but those horrors are also accompanied by acts of bravery and compassion. He uses his unique position to help his fellow prisoners, risking his life to secure food and medicine. While tattooing new prisoners in July 1942, Lale helps a young woman named Gita, a woman who Lale vows to marry once they survive the camp. The Tattooist of Auschwitz was a devastating, yet hopeful, read. This piece of biographical fiction is a good stepping stone to learn more about Lale and Gita Sokolov.

In addition to being the March Online Reading Challenge pick, this title was also made into a Peacock Original Series starring Harvey Keitel and Melanie Lynskey. I have plans to watch this series in the future to see how well it relates.

Next month, we will be reading a coming of age, or bildungsroman, novel!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on biographical fiction. Biographical fiction tells the story of a real person while using fictional elements. Our main title for March is The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions. - Harper

This title is also available in large print and CD audiobook.

Looking for some other biographical fiction? Try any of the following.

And They Called It Camelot: A Novel of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis by Stephanie Thornton
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy CheThe Queen's Secretvalier
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
The Queen's Secret by Karen Harper
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a mystery that you enjoyed?

I read our main title: The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex. I started reading a print copy of this book, but life got in the way, so I quickly turned to listening to the audiobook. Inspired by the true story of three lighthouse keepers disappearing from a remote tower in 1972, The Lamplighters dives into the lives of the keepers and those they left behind. The premise was fascinating and hooked me from the start. Flipping back and forth between 1972 and 1992, readers learn about what happened before the keepers disappeared and then 20 years later to present day. The circumstances surrounding their disappearances are never known, but theories abound. When a writer decides to interview the family members of the men in 1992, he hopes to find a united front, but instead discovers that the three main women have separated.

This narrative is tense, dark and unsettling. Saying that I enjoyed it sounds a bit wrong, but the exploration of the psychological impacts that lighthouse keeping, the tower, and grief have on everyone involved was intriguing. Multiple different points of view are shared, secrets are uncovered, and lives are woven together into a messy normal life. Seeing how the relationships change over time is typical of normal life with some changes. While this is a mystery, supernatural theories are explored. The ending wasn't what I expected and I would LOVE to know your thoughts on it! While I know that we truly will never know what happened both to the real life men that disappeared and to the men in this book, the ending was challenging for me (I'm trying so hard not to spoil anything). Let me know your thoughts and concerns in the comments!

Next month, we will be reading biographical fiction!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on mystery. Our main title for February is The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Inspired by a haunting true story, a gorgeous and atmospheric novel about the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a remote tower miles from the Cornish coast–and about the wives who were left behind.

What strange fate befell these doomed men? The heavy sea whispers their names. Black rocks roll beneath the surface, drowning ghosts. And out of the swell like a finger of light, the salt-scratched tower stands lonely and magnificent.

It’s New Year’s Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45.

Two decades later, the keepers’ wives are visited by a writer determined to find the truth about the men’s disappearance. Moving between the women’s stories and the men’s last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe.

In her riveting and suspenseful novel, Emma Stonex writes a story of isolation and obsession, of reality and illusion, and of what it takes to keep the light burning when all else is swallowed by dark. - Penguin Books

Looking for some other books that are mysteries? Try any of the following.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
In the Woods by Tana French
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

SUMMARY

Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a profoundly moving novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench.

Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her down a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, she’s shocked to learn that her new patients, Erica and India, are children—just eleven and thirteen years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits, that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica, and their family into her heart. Until one day she arrives at the door to learn the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.

Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace, and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten.

Because history repeats what we don’t remember.
(Summary provided by the author)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench (2010), Balm (2015), and most recently Take My Hand (2022). Take My Hand was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, Essence, NBC News, and elsewhere. The novel was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award and named a Top 20 Book of the Year by the Editors at Amazon. It was awarded the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Fiction and the 2023 BCALA Award for Fiction. The audiobook version of Take My Hand was named a Best of 2022 by Audible.

The American Bar Association recently awarded Take My Hand its prestigious Silver Gavel Award which recognizes an "outstanding work that fosters the American public's understanding of law and the legal system."

In 2011, Wench was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and in 2017, HarperCollins released Wench as one of eight "Olive Titles," limited edition modern classics that included books by Edward P. Jones, Louise Erdrich, and Zora Neale Hurston.

Dolen has established herself as a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life. In 2013, she wrote the introduction to a special edition of Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave, published by Simon & Schuster, which became a New York Times bestseller. She followed that with an introduction to Elizabeth Keckly's Behind the Scenes, published in 2016, and the forthcoming 75th anniversary of George Orwell's 1984 which will be published by Penguin Random House in 2023.

Dolen is a three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship and is currently Associate Professor in the Literature Department at American University and lives in Washington, DC with her family.
(Biography provided by the author)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Perkins-Valdez used the real-life 1973 case Relf v. Weinberger as a launching point for writing this novel. Did you know about this moment in history or similar stories? If not, why do you think these important historical moments are not more widely known?

• Take My Hand is told through the eyes of present-day Civil revealing to her grown daughter what happened in 1973. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story this way? Why is it important for us to pass on our family histories?

• History repeats what we don’t remember. With infamous cases like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and the use of Henrietta Lacks’s cells without her knowledge, what do you think is the importance of medical ethics in today’s society?

• So many people in this novel have good intentions—even Mrs. Seager believes she is doing what’s right. What are the dangers of good intentions? What responsibility do we have from the fallout of our “good deeds”?

• Civil and the nurses at the clinic try to make amends for the unintentional harm they have done to patients over the years. Do you think redemption was possible for them?

• Present-day Civil goes to visit her old friend Alicia. In what ways have the two women changed since their days of working together at the clinic?

• In the book, Civil recounts, “Our little family managed to live dignified in undignified times. Daddy shined his shoes every morning. Mama wore earrings. These little acts might seem simple to you, but baby, let me tell you. They held back the storm.” What is the significance of living “dignified” for both the Townsend and the Williams families?

• How do you think India and Erica’s story would have unfolded if Civil hadn’t stepped into their lives?

• Why do you think Civil never married?

• Do you think Civil was truly attracted to Mace Williams, or do you think it was a product of Civil’s romantic notion of what a hero is?

• The ideas of being a savior and being an advocate are important themes in the book. Who in your mind was a savior? Who in your mind was an advocate? What are examples of ways these roles are different?

• The book is set in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1973. What is the importance of time and place in the novel?
(Discussion questions provided by Penguin Random House)

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King

SUMMARY

The first in the beloved Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series, chosen as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association and as an Outstanding Book for the College Bound by the American Library Association, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice has continued to beguile readers of all ages and backgrounds.

I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him.

In this first of the “Russell Memoirs,” young Mary encounters a retired Sherlock Holmes during the first year of the Great War, and impresses him enough that, reluctantly, he takes her on as his apprentice. It takes a great deal of adjustment—on both sides.

He said nothing. Very sarcastically.

But Russell, as he comes to call her, matures into an Oxford undergraduate with her own strengths and interests—

I crawled into my books and pulled the pages up over my head.

—until danger comes out of nowhere, and threatens their partnership, and their very lives.
(Summary provided by the author)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of 30 novels and other works, including the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories (The Beekeeper’s Apprentice was chosen as one of the “20th Century’s Best Crime Novels” by the IMBA.) She has won the Agatha, Anthony, Creasey, Edgar, Lambda, Macavity, Wolfe, and Romantic Times Career Achievement awards, has an honorary doctorate in theology, and is a Baker Street Irregular. In 2022, she was named Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America. She co-edited (with Lee Child) the new handbook from Mystery Writers of America, How to Write a Mystery, and has a new contemporary series with SFPD Inspector Raquel Laing, beginning with Back to the Garden.

Laurie R. King is the third generation in her family native to the San Francisco area. She spent her childhood reading her way through libraries up and down the West Coast; her middle years raising children, renovating houses, traveling the world, and doing a BA and MA in theology. (Her long autobiography goes into detail about how she uses these interests.) King now lives a genteel life of crime, on California’s central coast.

Her crime novels are both serial and stand-alone. First in the hearts of most readers comes Mary Russell, who met the retired Sherlock Holmes in 1915 and became his apprentice, then his partner. Beginning with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Russell and Holmes move through the Teens and Twenties in amiable discord, challenging each other to ever greater feats of detection.

In the Russell & Holmes stories, King explores ideas—the roots of conflict in the Middle East and Afghanistan; feminism and early Christianity; patriotism and individual responsibility—while also having a rousing good time. Various stories revisit The Hound of the Baskervilles and Kipling’s Kim, set a pair of Bedouin nomads down in a grand country house in England, and offer an insider’s view of the great quake and fire of 1906, all the while forging an unlikely relationship between two remarkably similar individuals who happen to be separated by age, sex, and background. King’s newest series, beginning with Back to the Garden, finds SFPD Inspector Raquel Laing working on Cold Cases that reach into the present.

King’s Stuyvesant & Grey series, also historical, follows American ex-Bureau of Investigation agent Harris Stuyvesant, damaged young Captain Bennett Grey, and Grey’s sister Sarah as they move through Europe between the Wars.

Five King novels concern San Francisco homicide inspector Kate Martinelli, Kate’s SFPD partner Al Hawkin, and her life partner Lee Cooper. In the course of the stories, Kate has encountered a female Rembrandt, a modern-day Holy Fool, two difficult teenagers, and a manifestation of the goddess Kali.

King’s stand-alone suspense novels include A Darker Place, the story of a middle-aged professor of religion who investigates “cults” for the FBI, and encounters a movement that embraces the dangerous beliefs of alchemy. Folly tells of woodworker Rae Newborne, who comes to a deserted island to rebuild a house, and her life. Keeping Watch is the story of Rae’s friend Allen Carmichael, a Vietnam vet who draws on his combat experiences to rescue abused women and children—until he comes across a boy whose problems may rival his own. Califia’s Daughters (a paperback original by “Leigh Richards”) is a post-apocalyptic sort of tale set in a near future where women rule and men are fragile.

She has collaborated on nonfiction works including How to Write a Mystery with Lee Child, The Grand Game of Sherlock Holmes scholarship, and several short story anthologies.
(Biography provided by the author)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• In an Editor’s Preface, King playfully discloses the “true” origin of the story at hand: that what follows will be the actual memoirs of Mary Russell, which were mysteriously sent to her out of the blue, along with a trunk full of odds and ends. Why does King begin with this anecdote, essentially including herself in the story? Does it bring the world of the novel closer to our own? Have you read any other books (Lolita, for example) which begin with a false-preface, and what effect does this device have on the rest of the novel? Were you fooled?

• It is 1915, the Great War is raging through Europe and the men of England are in the trenches. How does this particular period in history allow a character like Mary Russell to take the stage in areas of post-Victorian society usually reserved for men? In what significant ways does she seize these opportunities? Would she have thrived if born into a different, more oppressive social climate, say, one hundred years earlier?

• How would you characterize Mary Russell based on her first opinion of bees? Does her disdain for their mindless busy-work and adherence to hive social structure reflect a particular attitude toward the social landscape of England at the time? Do you agree with Mary?

• Holmes uses the game of chess to sharpen Mary Russell’s strategic thinking and intuition. How does chess – and, in particular, the Queen – serve as a metaphor throughout the story? In what ways does King herself use the game to comment upon the master apprentice relationship?

• Russell and Holmes don disguises throughout The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and their work sometimes requires them to cross dress. Discuss each point in the novel where either Russell or Holmes takes cover in the opposite sex; what special access does this method of disguise give them to the other characters? Is gender reversal necessary in order to win the confidence of certain people? How does Mary Russell’s world change when she dresses as a man?

• Watson is eternally known as the great detective’s sidekick. Who, in your opinion, is a more effective foil for Holmes, Watson or Russell? What different aspects of Holmes’s personality emerge in the presence of each? What would happen if Holmes were paired with a different partner, one more timid or less tenacious?

• At Oxford, Mary Russell concludes that theology and detective work are one and the same. In your opinion, how are the two subjects related?

• The art of deduction is constantly at play in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Even when Mary notices that Watson has shaven off his mustache, she cares to look closer at the skin and imagine that it was done “very recently”. Is Laurie King training the reader’s perceptions to be more acute throughout the novel? Does every detail of our lives hold a mystery and a story?

• What are some crucial differences between the training Patricia Donleavy received from Moriarty and the training Mary Russell received from Holmes? What mental and emotional strengths do both women have in common, and what separates them? Holmes comments: “A quick mind is worthless unless you can control the emotions with it as well.” How does this maxim apply?

• At what point in the novel did you suspect that Russell’s adversary was a woman? When you read a mystery, what assumptions do you typically make about the gender of the villain? In what ways does King toy with the reader’s assumptions about gender throughout the novel?
(Discussion questions provided by the publisher)

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

SUMMARY

“I refuse to be nothing…”
In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu is flung back onto a collision course with her lethal fate. Her one chance of escape is to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness. Searching for a path to power, Zhu joins the rebellion—only to find it under existential threat from the Mongols’ most feared general: an enslaved eunuch whose beautiful female face conceals a heart as merciless as jade and ice.

For a monk with no martial skills, the front line of a war’s losing side is a bad place to be. And worse yet, Heaven is watching for any sign that Zhu might not be the true owner of the fate she has been audacious enough to claim…
(Summary provided by the author)

CONTENT WARNINGS

* Dysphoria
* Pre-existing non-consensual castration
* Misgendering
* Internalised homophobia
* Life-altering injury (amputation)
* Ableist language
* Non-graphic depictions of death by torture
* Major character death
* Offscreen murder of a child
* Scenes depicting extreme hunger/starvation
* Graphic depiction of a person burning to death
(Content Warnings provided by the author)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shelley Parker-Chan is an Asian Australian former international development adviser who worked on human rights, gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights in Southeast Asia. Their historical fantasy Radiant Emperor duology was a Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller and has been translated into 15 languages. Parker-Chan is a previous winner of the Astounding Award for Best Debut, and the British Fantasy Awards for Best Fantasy Novel and Best Newcomer. They have been a finalist for the Lambda, Locus, Aurealis, Ditmar, and British Book Awards. They live in Melbourne, Australia.
(Biography provided by the author)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Many of the characters in this book claim that their fate is inevitable, yet their actions seem to imply a modicum of free will. How much of their life is predestined and how much—if any—is decided through choice?

• Historically, the real Zhu Chongba was a cisgender, heterosexual man. Why do you think Parker-Chan chose to make Zhu Chongba (the protagonist) female/nonbinary in their novel? What point(s) do they want to make through this choice?

• Gender and gender roles are major themes in this novel. Choose a dynasty (Song, Yuan, Ming) or an ethnicity (Mongol, Semu, Nanren, Hui) mentioned in the novel. How are these characteristics depicted in the novel? What creative liberties did the author take?

• What did you think of the different POVs?

• What did you think of the use of gender portrayals/roles in this book?

• What did you think of the historical elements?

• What worked or didn't for you?
(Discussion questions provided by SuperSummary and Goodreads)

FIVE QUESTIONS WITH SHELLEY PARKER CHAN

She Who Became the Sun has been described as Mulan meets The Song of Achilles, but it’s better to drop all expectations these comparisons conjure up and go in expecting to be dazzled. I couldn’t wait to get Shelley on the blog to talk about this fascinating novel and the ideas behind it.

What was the most challenging thing you encountered when planning a fictional re-imagining of actual historical events?

There’s this book of poetry by Jacques Roubard that has a title that’s stuck with me: The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart. But when it comes to epoch-changing historical events, I feel that it’s the opposite: those changes take place at much slower rate than changes of the human heart. The start and end of empires takes decades. Lifetimes. But if your main story has a century-long timeframe, it becomes hard to integrate character-level story arcs—self-discovery, romances—that have as their natural timeframe a few years, or months. This is not to say that authors of historical fiction—or the screenwriters of Chinese historical dramas—can’t do this successfully, because they do. But for my particular story, which is so intimately concerned with personal identity, I couldn’t have Zhu Yuanzhang’s rise to power take thirty years as it did in reality. I had to compress the timeline. I threw most of the complexity of the political situation out of the window, but I’m not sorry for it: it was never my aim to write a story about politics. Or, for that matter, military strategy.

I thought your commentary on gender identity was subtle and well-integrated into the overall story. Was this aspect and its accompanying themes present from the beginning for you?

I suppose as soon as you give your story a backbone of tropes like “girl takes male identity”, “eunuch who is angry about being a eunuch” and “esteemed warrior prince vs humiliated scholar prince”, you have a story about gender identity, and the performance of gender, on your hands. As a genderqueer person, the performance of gender is always on my mind. I guess that’s why I gravitate towards those tropes. They’re the ones that best allow me to explore what I’m interested in. I always say, “the original Mulan story isn’t about gender, actually”—it’s more about filial piety in service of Confucian nationalism—and when I started She Who Became the Sun, I knew I wanted a Mulan-esque story that was definitely about gender. So it was there from the beginning, but it deepened and gained nuance with each iteration of the revision process, as these things inevitably do.

C drama has experienced a recent explosion in popularity in the west with a fandom that’s fully behind its most-loved tropes. Has its presence in the community affected the way you created SWBTS? Or the way you talk about the story now that the book is in readers’ hands?

She Who Became the Sun is obviously heavily influenced by Chinese and Korean historical dramas, but it was fully formed before The Untamed became the first cdrama to have a substantial English language fandom. When I queried SWBTS, and later sold it, I think a lot of agents and editors struggled with the idea that it referenced real historical figures but wasn’t historically accurate, and how it was told in an escapist fantasy register but didn’t have magic. They were like “Is this a historical? Is it a fantasy? What the hell is it?” Whereas now when I say that SWBTS is a palace drama, people know what that is because of Netflix. It’s great to see Chinese stories getting their due on the world stage.

At the same time, as cdramas become popular with non-Chinese fans who may also encounter my work, it becomes increasingly important for me to make the distinction that what I write is the product of a diaspora identity. Is it going to be identical in its treatment of theme to a mainland-produced, Mandarin-language cdrama? Will it adhere to the emerging stylistic conventions of fan-translated subtitles? Of course not. It’s been through western gatekeepers, it was written in English, it bears the imprint of my upbringing on western media. It contains all my ambivalence towards my own culture that’s a result of factors like anti-Asian racism in the west, feelings of inadequacy with regards to loss of language and culture, and the sexism and racism and colourism and homophobia that was very present within my specific diaspora community while I was growing up. But having differences to what cdrama fans have learned to expect doesn’t make it less authentic. It just makes it itself: a diaspora story.

I don’t think I’ve sympathised so deeply with such a morally-grey character as Zhu. And Zhu is not your only character who employs less than heroic methods in pursuing their goals. How do you go about writing protagonists whose actions might be understandable, but not acceptable?

I think we feel for Zhu because she starts in a very sympathetic place: as a child who’s told by the world and everyone in it that simply because of what she is—a girl—she’s useless, worthless, nothing. We feel the injustice of her situation. And we see how her drive and ambition and, yes, her ruthlessness and selfishness, are rooted in that beginning. In fear, and as a response to unfairness, rather than in entitlement. Adult Zhu justifies her actions, but she also never falls into the trap of thinking that they’re good. She acknowledges herself as the agent of the harm caused to others. In contrast, Ouyang also justifies his actions—but he positions himself as the eternal victim of forces outside his control. Having a pair of protagonists to compare and contrast is handy in this respect. Because Zhu embraces her agency and chooses her own path, we see that Ouyang could do the same—and so his refusal to do so makes Zhu seem likeable in comparison. Terribleness is all relative!

Pitch us She Who Became the Sun! Why should we be reading it?

Do you love that pure moment of catharsis when someone terrible gets what they deserve? Do you want to witness the revenge of the genderqueers against the patriarchy? Do you enjoy seeing beautiful men kneeling in shame and humiliation? Then: this book may be for you.
(Interview provided by Breaking the Glass Slipper)

The Cousins by Karen M. McManus

SUMMARY

Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know one another, and they've never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they're surprised ... and curious.

Their parents are all clear on one point - not going is not an option. This could be the opportunity to get back into Grandmother's good graces. But when the cousins arrive on the island, it's immediately clear she has different plans for them. And the longer they stay, the more they realize how mysterious - and dark - their family's past is.

The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn't over - and this summer, the cousins will learn everything.
(Summary provided by the author)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen M. McManus is a #1 New York Times and international bestselling author of young adult thrillers. Her work includes the One of Us Is Lying series, which was turned into a television show, as well as the standalone novels Two Can Keep a Secret, The Cousins, You’ll Be the Death of Me, Nothing More to Tell, and Such Charming Liars. Karen’s critically acclaimed, award-winning books have been translated into forty-two languages.
(Biography provided by the author)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• How was the Story family’s motto “Family first, always” applied in their case? Do you think that motto has positive applications?

• Something important happened between Milly and her mom that shifted their relationship. Could that sort of thing help other parents and kids?

• Are there lessons to be learned here about the sexual choices some people make as teens and adults? What about alcohol use? Do you think there are some applicable things of note in that area? What do you think the book is saying about great wealth?

• What did you think about this book’s mystery twist? Was it believable? How was it made possible?

• The Cousins is full of characters pretending to be people they’re not. Which reveal surprised you the most? Why? And when did you figure it out? Think about how the timing of the reveal impacted your reading. Think of a story in which a character’s true identity is hidden.

• Abraham Story’s philosophy was “Family first, always.” Do his children live by this motto? Brainstorm a story that references a specific motto. How will you incorporate the motto into the story?

• Multiple characters in The Cousins are driven by a need for revenge on behalf of their families. Who would you say was successful, and why? Why is revenge a strong motivator, especially in thrillers?
(Discussion questions provided by Plugged In and RCHB)

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

SUMMARY

In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.

David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.

David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
(Summary provided by the publisher)

INTRODUCTION

Heralded as a masterpiece and widely regarded as a touchstone of queer literature, James Baldwin’s 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room tells the story of a young American man’s poignant love affair in 1950s Paris. Addressing questions of sexuality, morality, and nationality with an unflinching gaze and a sharp pen, Baldwin crafts an achingly honest tale of love, death, and desire that is raw, emotional, and absolutely unforgettable.

When David left America, he thought he would be able to find freedom on the foreign streets of Paris. Now his money is running low; his girlfriend, Hella, is traveling through Spain contemplating his marriage proposal; and his father’s letters are urging his return. Unsure of his future, he has a chance encounter with Giovanni—a beautiful Italian bartender who is in Paris to mourn his own past—that leads to a reluctant yet passionate affair, one that will teach David that even the ocean isn’t wide enough to escape the memories that he’s spent years trying to outrun.

Caught between two lovers, torn between convention and passion, and hastened by Hella’s return, David struggles to negotiate his origins, identity, and sexuality to make a decision that will shape his future. Told over the course of one tormented night that will end in tragedy, Giovanni’s Room is a portrait of longing and a warning of the dangers of love suppressed that is equally moving, devastating, and brilliant.

The following questions are designed to enrich your reading group’s discussion of Giovanni’s Room. We hope they encourage thoughtful conversation and deepen your understanding of James Baldwin’s modern classic.
(Introduction provided by the publisher)

BIOGRAPHY

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after being made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor.
(Biography provided by Penguin Random House)

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

• Giovanni’s Room is told through David’s intimate, first-person perspective as he looks back on his life and reflects on his love affair with Giovanni. Why do you think Baldwin chose to tell the story in this way? As a reader, how did this confessional form affect your experience of the novel? Imagine if the story were told from another character’s perspective. How would it differ?

• Giovanni’s Room is set in 1950s Paris. How do the French dialogue and allusions to the state of postwar Europe add to the realism of the novel and evoke the atmosphere of the city? In what ways does this setting reflect the novel’s central themes and moods?

• Throughout the novel, David often returns to the image of his reflection, which seems to shift as he recounts his love affair with Giovanni. In chapter one, what does David see in his reflection? By the end of the novel, how has his perception of himself changed?

• In chapter one, David introduces readers to the story of Joey. Who is Joey, and why is he important to understanding David’s relationship with Giovanni? Why did David decide to keep this experience a secret, and what do you think this omission reveals about his character?

• The characters in Giovanni’s Room live in a community of expatriates who met after arriving in Paris. Where did they come from, and why did they decide to flee their homelands? Do any of them find what they are looking for in Paris?

• Giovanni’s dire fate is revealed in the early pages of the novel. What feelings arose in you, knowing from the beginning how Giovanni’s story would end? Do you think that this knowledge impacted your perception of the plot as it unfolded? Why might Baldwin have chosen to structure the story in this way?

• David’s relationship with his father is troubled by the feeling that his father left him unprepared to become a man. How does David’s family define manhood, and how does this definition conflict with David’s own manifestations of masculinity? Do you think David’s father is to blame for his trouble reconciling the two?

• Much of Giovanni’s Room takes place in the gay bars and queer spaces that compose the novel’s Parisian landscape. How does this atmosphere compare to that of the United States at this time? Was there ever a setting where David felt truly secure in his sexuality?

• In the novel, numerous characters face stereotypes about their culture and countries of origin. Share your own experience of traveling away from home. Have you ever felt people made assumptions about you based on where you are from? How did you react?

• Religion and morality are topics that Baldwin addresses in much of his writing, and Giovanni’s Room makes notable references to the Bible, including the Garden of Eden, the curse of Ham, and Judas’s betrayal. How does religion complicate David’s understanding of his own sexuality and his relationship with Giovanni?

• Through David’s narrative, Giovanni’s Room reveals the ways that external views on love and relationships can become internalized, leading to shame and alienation. Where does the pressure to marry a woman and have children come from, and how does David resist or fall victim to this norm? Have you ever felt pressure to reach a milestone, regardless of whether it was something you truly desired? Share your own experience of confronting those expectations.

• The novel’s title comes from the maid’s room that Giovanni and David share during their love affair. Describe this setting. How does David’s perception of it change as his relationship with Giovanni unravels? In the end, why does David believe it’s imperative to escape Giovanni’s room?

• Sex is used by many of the characters as an avenue to avoid loneliness, find power, and escape lingering doubts about their sexuality. Do you think the novel portrays any healthy sexual or romantic relationships?

• Describe David and Hella’s relationship. Why does he propose to Hella, and why, despite her critiques of marriage, does she agree?

• Recall Giovanni and Hella’s first meeting. How did this play out for David, and what events did this encounter set in motion?

• Reflect on the characters of Jacques and Guillaume. Who are they, and what is their relationship with David and Giovanni? How would you characterize the dynamic between them? Supportive and encouraging? Exploitative and dangerous? A bit of both? What privileges do Jacques and Guillaume have that Giovanni and David, as well as Yves and Pierre, do not, and how do they use this power?

• Return to the novel’s closing scene. What is inside the envelope, and why does David tear it to pieces? Do you think it’s significant that some of the pieces returned to David? Ultimately, do you think he will ever be able to escape what has happened to Giovanni?
(Questions and topics for discussion provided by the publisher)

SUGGESTED READING

Another Country by James Baldwin
Just Above My Head by James Baldwin
Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone by James Baldwin
Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes
I Will Greet the Sun Again by Khashayar J. Khabushani
Sula by Toni Morrison
Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews
The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Suggested reading provided by the publisher)