Sawkill Girls (Legrand) - Discussion Questions

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

1. How would you describe the island of Sawkill Rock? How well does the author do in terms of creating an immersive atmosphere? Does the island seem to change during the course of the novel?

2. What are your thoughts about giving the Rock, an inanimate object, its own perspective? Why might the author have done so? What does the following passage mean? "It did not relish tying an innocent to the burden of its ancient might. But the Rock required an infantry"

3. Talk about your experience reading The Sawkill Girls. How did you get through it: did you read with bated breath, with relish … or did you just want it to be over? Reviewers use descriptions like creepy, gory, genuinely frightening, spine-tingling, horrifying. Care to add an adjective or two of your own?

4. Each of the three girls, Zoey, Marion, and Val, is dealing with her own set of problems. Discuss those the girls and the way their separate stories intertwine.

5. How would you describe each of the girls. Is there one whose story you find more sympathetic than the others? Or does one of the girls appeal to you more than the others?

6. One of the concerns of the book is competition: the way society pits girls against one another, manipulating them into butting heads. Talk about how that operates in The Sawkill Girls and how Zoe, Marion, and Val manage to overcome this competitiveness.

7. What are your thoughts about the Collector when you finally meet him? Did he meet the expectations of mystery surrounding him at the beginning of the novel?

8. What is your take on the fact that the three girls each represented some aspect of LGBTQIA?

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

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