Fall of Lisa Bellow (Perabo) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Fall of Lisa Below…then take off on your own:

1. Discuss the residual trauma of Lisa Bellow's kidnapping on Meredith Oliver, especially as retreats into an imaginary world, plagued by nightmares she believes that Lisa might be having. How, ultimately, does Meredith's understanding of, or at least her view of, Lisa change by the end of the book?

2. What about the anxiety Lisa has been facing in school while attempting to navigate the teenage social hierarchy? Does the mean-girl atmosphere ring true? Does any of  it bring back memories of your own middle or high school experience? Might Lisa be excused (or not) for banking on her new-found notoriety in order to chuck her older friends and move up in the world?

3. What do you think of Claire Oliver? In what way is she ambivalent about motherhood? Claire is quite funny; in what way, or for what purposes, does she use her humor?

4. How would you describe the Olivers' marriage? Talk about the changes in family dynamics after the kidnapping and the array of stresses the family faces. In what way does each member manage to cope?

5. How does this novel frame survivor guilt? How do the characters, if they ever do, achieve resolution and acceptance?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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