Our Book Of The Month for October is The Mothers by Brit Bennett. For our online Book Clubbers we have some questions below for you to get involved with. Either answer in the comments section or use as discussion points at your next Book Club. If you haven’t read the book check out our Lowdown all about it here.
The Mothers – The Blurb
All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we’d taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season.
It’s the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother’s recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor’s son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it’s not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance – and the subsequent cover-up – will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver and dogged by the constant, nagging question: what if they had chosen differently?
Discussion Points
The following are written with the presumption you have read The Mothers. If you haven’t, bookmark the post and come back to answer the questions later.
- Why didn’t Nadia reveal her secret to Aubrey during the summer they became friends?
- Do you think Nadia’s mother’s suicide was connected to getting pregnant at such a young age?
- Would Nadia have ended up like her mother if she had kept the baby?
- The book has a group of women referred to as ‘the mothers’ however Bennett seems to be examining all the mothers in the book, Luke’s, Aubrey’s, Nadia’s and even the latter two as mothers themselves. Do you agree?
- Who do you think was a good mother in the book?
- Bennett seems to indicate that Nadia’s father only felt accepted into the church because of his truck. This is mirrored by Nadia when she returns home and starts to use it. Why did both characters feel like outsiders even before Nadia’s mother committed suicide?
- Do you think Nadia ever find happiness?
Get Involved
Feel free to answer as many of the questions as you want. Post your replies below, discuss with us on social media using @BookSocialUK, or pose some questions of your own. If you enjoyed the questions, have a go at last month’s Get Involved: The Chain.
And come back tomorrow to read our #BigReview of The Mothers.
