Book Club Questions for Please Stop Laughing at Me

I reviewed Please Stop Laughing at Me here

It's not a typical book club book, so I didn't manage to find book club questions for it, so I wrote the following myself.

1. Why do you think Jodee was bullied?
2. Were her parents sympathetic or unsympathetic?
3. Do you think the spin the bottle episode when she was in 6th grade was normal 6th grade behavior?
4. Did Jodee do the right thing in phoning her parents or should she have remained silent?
5. Why was that the end of her friends being nice to her?
6. What would you advise your children to do in a similar situation?
7. When Jodee and her family moved, she made friends with the neighborhood children, but why did they turn on her when she started school?
8. Why did her parents send her to a therapist? Was it her fault she was bullied?
9. Why did she not want to go and see the therapist?
10. Jodee was an only child, do you think only children have a more difficult time forming friendships at school?
11. Why wouldn’t Jodee tell when she was bullied at high school?
12. Some people think a tough time at school makes a stronger person, do you agree?
13. Did you fear your own school reunions, and if so, why?
14. Do you think they really apologized at her 20-year reunion?
15. Why did it take her 20 years to recover from the severe bullying?
16. What is the solution to bullying?

Please Stop Laughing at Me: One Woman's Inspirational True Story by Jodee Blanco

Please Stop Laughing at Me: One Woman's Inspirational True Story

This is Jodee Blanco's story of being bullied in school, moving schools, being bullied again, and moving to another school. At times, as I read, I was shocked, another time I wanted to cry for her. All through her school days she felt she was alone, couldn't tell her parents, couldn't tell the teachers and didn't know what to do.

The book became a best seller and now Jodee Blanco runs seminars in schools about bullying. After doing this for a while, she wrote a second book, Please Stop Laughing at Us: One Survivor's Extraordinary Quest to Prevent School Bullying

Within our group of moms I thought bullying was a good topic to discuss, and I was right. One person chose not to read the book and join us, but for the rest of us who did, the topic was well discussed. 

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

House Rules: A Novel

This is the story of a 17 year old Asperger's boy who is arrested for a murder he didn't do. Because he has Asperger's, his normal mannerisms are interpreted by the police as guilt. There is a good description of his autistic tendencies, and Jodi Picoult has obviously done her homework well, but the thing I didin't like about this book was the fact that it is fiction. There are many, many real life stories of autistic children, that I felt there didn't need to be a fiction story of an autistic person. Having said that, I found the information about Asperger's and autism to be correct, even the part where she suggests many parents of autistic children blame immunizations for the condition of their children. There is a discussion on immunizations for a couple of pages, without a definitive answer either way, which is how it is in the real world.

Autism and its milder form, Asperger's, is becoming increasingly common in society. So when we read this book in book club we got a larger turn out than usual and many of the people who came have an autistic child, or know of one personally. For those who are not related to autism, the book was very informative.

Here's another Jodi Picoult book I have reviewed
Change of Heart

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

This book is fiction, but it might not have been. The book starts in 1875 with Ulysses S. Grant requesting that 1,000 white women intermarry with Cheyenne Indians. The story is that of one woman, May Dodd, who volunteered to do just that. This is her story and the story of those she met along her journey. 

The books was, in fact, so realistic that I had to check it really was fiction. There is a lot of information about the lifestyle of the Indians and the attitudes of the time. And in our book club led to some "what if" discussions, which were also very enlightening. 

The book is really well written and very informative about the period, the politics and human nature. This is a favorite of mine amongst the book club books I have read.

Against Medical Advice by James Patterson and Hal Friedman

Against Medical Advice

Mostly in book clubs what we read is fiction, but this book was a rare non-fiction book we chose to read.

The story is that of a child who suffers with tourettes, a syndrome characterized by tics, usually physical but often verbal too. The book is written as if the boy is writing the story, but actually it's written by his father.

The story is that of his struggles with tourettes, but also with the medication that is prescribed, in particular with the side effects of the medication.

As a parent of an ADHD child and an autistic child, I was surprised in the discussion how little most people know about syndromes that affect today's children and as such the book was a good education for many book club members.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jaime Ford

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Set in Seattle, this is the story of a friendship between Henry, a Chinese boy, and Keiko, a Japanese girl, just as the Second World War breaks out. The story switches between that time and 1986, when the Hotel Panama is opened up and the belongings of Japanese families are rediscovered. They stored their valuables just before being interned, but many didn't come back for them.

Henry remembers his friendship for Keiko while searching the hotel for any physical momentos, and flashes back to the story of their growing friendship in an environment where the Japanese were the enemy. It is both a narrative of those times and a delightful story of human nature and emotion.

Personally I started the book on a plane on my way to my first ever visit to Seattle. I knew it was coming up to read for book club, so I saved it for that moment. Reading the book in Seattle and visiting the city at the same time led me to understand a little about the culture of that city. The book describes the jazz scene of the 1940s and the ethnic communities of the time really well.

This book led to one of the best discussions I have had in a book club. Not just the story of Henry and Keiko, but the whole dilemma of different races in the United States, and whether the decision to lock away those of Japanese descent was a good one or not. This is the best type of book for a book club, a great story that leads to an active discussion.

Book Club Questions for The Sacred Thread by Adrienne Arieff

Here is my review of this book

The Sacred Thread by Adrienne Arieff

When looking for book club questions for this book, I couldn't find any, so I wrote my own, so here they are:

1. Did you enjoy the book, The Sacred Thread?

2. What would you have done if you couldn’t carry a baby to term?

3. Do you know anyone who has used a surrogate, or been a surrogate?

4. Do you know anyone who has had IVF?

5. What were the risks in Adrienne having her baby in India?

6. How do you think Vaina felt about the whole transaction?

7. The book is a successful story with a happy ending. What could have gone wrong with her plan?

8. Given that the cost of a surrogate in the US is about $100,000 and the cost of a surrogate in India is about $50,000, is the fact that American women are using Indians to help them achieve a family helping or abusing Indian women?

9. What is the Sacred Thread?

10. In what way were the parents prepared/not prepared for parenthood?

11. Would you ever have a baby for someone else, either paid or unpaid?

12. What is the limit of what you would do to provide for your own children?

13. Why do many women think they have a right to have a child?

14. Has the book changed your views on IVF or surrogacy?

15. How much did the book sell the idea of International surrogacy for others in the future?

16. Did you cry at any point when you were reading the book, which part?

17. Overall, how much did you enjoy the book?