This month’s FYA Book Club selection is Juniper Lemon’s Happiness Index by Julie Israel. 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
Juniper is panic-stricken when she realizes she’s lost an index card that contains her deepest, darkest secret, inspiring her to create a mixed media collage of people’s found objects. Have you ever lost something that was deeply important to you? Conversely, have you ever found something cool or personal that belonged to a stranger, and if so, what was it?
Questions
1. Juniper hunts for Camilla’s secret boyfriend with an almost obsessive fervor, both as a way of coping with her grief and as a means of distracting herself from what’s truly bothering her–that she and Camilla had fought right before the car accident. Did you feel like Juniper’s grief was represented in an authentic and effective way?
2. Juniper goes out of her way to help Kody and Angela when she finds private notes they’d thrown away detailing their most personal thoughts. Did you find Juniper’s need to help others to be intrusive? Would you have done the same if you’d found a note like Kody’s, or do you think Juniper should have minded her own business?
3. How did you feel about the friendships that Juniper develops with Nate, Kody, and Angela? Nate had secret motives for befriending Juniper, and Juniper had secret motives for befriending Kody and Angela. In your opinion, did this cheapen the bonds of their friendships, or was it just a means to an otherwise positive end?
4. What did you think of the romance between Juniper and Brand? Axe Body Spray aside, did you like Brand? Did you think it was good that he challenged Juniper and called her out, or did you think he sometimes went too far to prove a point?
5. When Juniper finds out that Brand’s father is abusing him, he makes her promise not to call child protective services, and she agrees not to. Would you have done the same thing in her situation? Why or why not?
6. Everyone – everyone – in this book has secrets, and rather than laying out all the facts, Julie Israel teases out little bits of information as the story progresses. Did Israel’s writing style have you flipping pages quickly to find out what’s going on, or did not knowing everything about the character’s motivations up front hinder you from caring as much about their outcome?
7. In the end, You’s identity remains a secret. Did you like that we don’t find out, or would you have preferred a big, surprise reveal? Were you developing theories along the way about who Camilla might have been dating?
