Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Anatomy of Wings:
1. Discuss Jennifer and her sense of loss. What kind of child is she? Why are facts so important to Jennifer, and what does that suggest about how her mind works?
2. What is the significance of Jennifer's singing voice? Talk about how it "got stuck"—and how she ultimately regains it.
3. How does Jennifer's family react to Beth's death. How would Jennifer prefer they deal with it—and why?
4. Discuss the differing views of Beth—that she was wild and loose, or that she operated through grace and saw angels. Which way does Jennifer lean...and which way do you? Why?
5. What is the trajectory of Beth's behavior shortly before she dies? How does it change and why? Who, if anyone, is to blame? How do Beth's parents respond to her changes in behavior?
6. Not only in its title, but throughout, the book has many references to wings—birds wings, Icarus's wings.... What is their symbolic significance to the story?
7. Talk about the box of Beth's belongings and what its contents suggest to Jennifer about her sister.
8. Did you enjoy the structure of the novel, the breaks in straightforward narrative? In what way might it mimic how memory works?
9. What does the novel gain by being told as a first-person narrative?
10. In addition to coping with loss, what are other basic human issues explored in Anatomy?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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