This month’s FYA Book Club selection is Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick. Check out the discussion questions below! (Slight spoilers ahead.)
P.S. If you’ve already read the book, feel free to add any other discussion questions of your own in the comments!
Icebreaker
Did you ever have an awesome teacher like Herr Silverman? What made him/her so inspiring?
Questions
1. Did you find Leonard to be a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
2. If you had gone to high school with Leonard, what would have been your perception of him?
3. Did Leonard’s potential as a high school shooter seem realistic to you? Why or why not?
4. Baback, Walt, Lauren and Herr Silverman each provided a different lens with which to view Leonard. Which character’s perspective of Leonard did you most identity with? And which character did you like the most?
5. Leonard’s fake adult days: wise or weird? (Or both?)
6. Matthew Quick used footnotes extensively, and he also played around with the text layout in some passages. Did these devices distract from or enhance your reading experience?
7. Did Linda and Asher ever become sympathetic characters to you? If so, when and how did your opinion of them change?
8. If your future wrote letters to your teenage self, what important message would they communicate to you?
