Book Club for Introverts discussion

Here's the place to talk about chapters 16-18. Please don't spoil it for others; if you want to talk about something in a later chapter, I'll be posting topics for the other chapters as well.

She’s in prison!! All this time I assumed she was in a nursing home but she’s in a prison hospital!! Now I’m sure Cara ends up dead, but did Frances do it or is she framed? And what’s with all the weird things going on, the bird in the room the footsteps but no one is there. Is this place haunted and by who?

I’m so glad someone posted this! I read last night that she was in prison and was so surprised but it made a lot of things make sense. Now to fill in all the holes about the haunting, Peter, Cara, and how she ended up in prison.

I can’t wait for everyone to finish!!! 😂😂😂

Frances is either going crazy or Cara and or Peter are trying to scare her or make her think she’s going crazy OR someone else is in the house.

“The shadow at my back returned, grey air pressing up against me, and I spun around to catch it. Wrongdoing. The word came into my head as if someone had spoke. It aloud.”

Cara continues to try to convince Frances that she was a virgin when she got pregnant and that Jesus came off the wall and impregnated her.

I’m wondering if perhaps Dermod or perhaps the priest she confessed to is the father of her baby.

Peter takes Frances to dinner. Why? Is he innocent or trying to give her hope, to keep her unbalanced so she won’t question or notice that he’s selling the things from the museum. Does he make the comment about people staring to make her self-conscious?

She thinks they are staring because they envy them. “A woman at the next table turned to stare, and I could tell she was thinking what a handsome couple we made and how wonderful it must be to find love later in life.”

Victor continues to try to get Frances to tell him what happened.

She’s having multiple flashbacks. One of her with a champagne bottle dripping blood and Cara with a bloody hole in her head.

Cara tries to kill herself or does she? Fran wonders if she faked it.

Frances’ mother blames her for her stretch marks and wonders if she’d never had Frances would her husband have left her?

Cara tells Frances what happened to the baby and blames Peter.

Cara tells Frances that she and Peter don’t make love. Frances lies to herself and says that until then she was thinking of Peter and her as having only an intellectual connection but now she is thinking of more.

Why has Frances lost interest in the bridge? The bridge or the hope of what the bridge might be is what brought her here but they only cleared a little of the growth from it. She doesn’t seem to want to see what it really looks like. Is she afraid of where it will take her?

Cara reveals that she thinks Peter might make love to her if she were as fat as Frances. Frances realizes that Cara has been using her. I wonder if Cara wanted to see if Peter would be attracted to Frances since she was fat like Mallory?

We find out that Frances is in prison. Did she kill Cara or did Cara kill herself and Frances took the blame because of her feelings for Peter?

I think all of chapter 17 made me cringe. I feel bad for Frances. Dressing up and going to dinner with Peter. 😬 she just doesn’t understand people since she’s been so isolated. And I feel like I knew she was in prison already? Maybe I just assumed since Victor keeps asking her what really happened?

Holy moly... my mouth went agape when I read she was in prison, though it all makes sense.
I think Victor believes she was framed or maybe took the blame for Peter or possibly Cara kills herself and Frances was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Victor is just waiting for her to tell him that she didn’t do it.

I wonder why Peter is still with Cara after everything.

Im eager to finish the book, but a little sad that it’s almost over.

Great insight! I agree that Victor wants her to tell him she didn’t do it. I think he’s in love with her and wants to believe the best about her.

I don’t even know what to think. Prison? Did Frances murder Cara? Or, is Frances the one with the mental health issues?