This month’s FYA Book Club selection is Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. Check out the discussion questions below! (Slight spoilers ahead.)
Questions
1. As Lindsay might say while shoving you into a locker and getting all up in your face, “How do you like me NOW, bitch?” What do you think about the girls?
2. Of all of the characters in the book, who would you nominate for the yearbook’s “Most Changed For the Better” award? “Most Changed For the Worst”? Who ended up being the biggest surprise?
3. Of all of the characters in the book, who do you want to give a Valogram to? What would it say?
4. Who do you most want to face punch?
5. The Catty Corner: write something on the bathroom wall to the your person of choice!
6. At what point was your swoon at its highest rating?
A) When Kent kissed Sam ever so gently;
B) When full on SMOOCHAGE occurred; or
C) No part. I am a robot incapable of feeling.
7. What was your top OMG/WTF moment?
8. Does the social stratification in this book seem authentic to you? Why or why not?
9. What clique did you belong to in high school?
10. Seriously, if you were popular, DO NOT BE SHAMED BY THIS BOOK (except if you called people “psycho” and made stabbing sounds. Then, yeah, you should feel terrible about yourself). We really want to hear from those of you who, like Sam, were in the popular crowd. Was this what it was like?!! More specifically, did you go to lots of high school parties and were they anything like the scene in the book? Can you tell I was a huge nerd and never invited to said parties? I need details, people!!!
11. Do you have any regrets from high school? If you had the chance, would you go back and change them?
12. How do you think Sam should react in some of the different scenarios she relives?
13. Sam spends a lot of time trying to fix all of her mistakes or right perceived wrongs. Which ones are important? Should she try to fix everything or just focus on one or two people/problems?
14. In Chapter Five, Sam has her best (and worst) day. If you could make one Best day, what would it consist of? What would you do, where would you go, who would you want to be with? (Don’t worry; I promise FYA will not kill one of your besties in a cruel twist of fate. We’re much nicer than Fate is.)
15. As Sam chases Juliet out of the cafeteria, she thinks, “Everything looks so stupidly, happily normal: everyone just wasting time because they have so much of it to waste, minutes slipping by on who’s with who and did you hear” (P. 362). Looking back, what’s one thing you wish you had appreciated more about high school?
16. Even though we instantly saw through the bowler hat into Kent’s total hotness, it took Sam a while to realize HE IS AMAZING. Back in high school, did you have your own version of a Kent? Or were YOU a Kent? Either way, did you achieve salvation or was reading this book torture cos the whole time you’re like WHY DON’T I GET ANOTHER SHOT LIKE THAT BISH SAMANTHA KINGSTON?
17. WHAT did you think of that ending?? True to life, or totally bogus?
18. What is the number one thing you think you’d do if you had to save your high school self? Also, any final parting thoughts on this book, your life, high school dramz, anything else?
