Their Last Days of Summer Book Club Questions
Warning! These Questions Contain Spoilers!
1. Discuss how thirty-five years changed each of the four women.
2. Which of the female characters did you feel the most sympathy for? And the least? Did this change as the story progressed?
3. What about the male characters?
4. How did the outcomes align with your expectations? For example, which woman did you suspect had given birth? Were you right about who’d left the baby at the church? What about who died? And the person who killed them?
5. Going on holiday with people means you get to know each other well and can bring things bubbling to the surface. Do you have your own experiences of this?
6. How well did the Aruban backdrop tie in with the darkness between the characters in the story? Did you envy their location or feel relieved you weren’t there?
7. Another contrast in the story is that between wealth and poverty. What instances did you notice?
8. Discuss what fuelled the partner-swapping game. Could different pairings have changed the direction of the story?
9. Talk about how the romantic relationships between the four women with their partners have evolved during the story. What realisations might they have come to about themselves?
10. Some difficult themes are dealt with in this book. What retribution has been achieved by the end of it?
11. What might Mary’s life have been like if Jo had fought to keep her?
12. Discuss how all four women have been affected over the years by their part in Mary’s abandonment.
13. Discuss the factors that might have led Zane to turn out the way he did.
14. What are your thoughts on Jo telling Mary the ‘whole’ story?
15. What would you like to see happen next?