Secrets of a Charmed Life (Meissner)

Discussion Questions
1. What did you enjoy most about Secrets of a Charmed Life? What do you think will stay with you?

2. Would you describe Secrets of a Charmed Life as a story about sisters or a story about mothers and daughters?

3. Discuss the secrets that the characters keep from one another. What facts does Annie hide from her daughters and why? What do Emmy and Julia not tell the men they eventually marry? What secret does Charlotte keep? How do these secrets impact the characters’ lives? Are there other secrets in the book?

4. How is this book different than other books you’ve read about World War 2?

5. Describing Emmy, the author wrote, “She stood at a crossroads, half-aware that her choice would send her down a path from which there could be no turning back. But instead of two choices, she saw only the one—because it was all she really wanted to see.” Has there ever been a time when you couldn’t see the choices open to you until much later?

6. Later in her life, Julia writes in her journal: “Fear does not start to fade until you take the step that you think you can’t.” Do you agree? What was Julia afraid of when she wrote this?

7. How similar or dissimilar were Emmy and her mother? Did Emmy have an accurate view of the kind of person her mother was?

8. Isabel tells Kendra that there are no secrets to charmed life. There is only the task of forgiving ourselves for only being able to make our own choices, and no one else’s? What do you think she meant by this?

9. What did the sketches of brides’ dresses represent to Emmy?

10. What were Emmy’s reasons for choosing to remain Isabel throughout her adult life? Would you have done the same?

11. On one level, the novel is about losing something very precious. What’s the most precious thing you’ve ever lost? What were the consequences?

12. Have you ever lived through a time of war or social chaos, even to a small degree? How does your experience compare with what Emmy and Julia went through?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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