November's book.
"Life has been unfulfilling for Alexa, sometimes downright tragic. She has lost her vision for finding extraordinary within the ordinary. Her vulnerable, older sister Rebecca, brain –damaged from a car accident many years earlier has run away from her group home. Worried, Alexa sets off to find Rebecca with the help of her reluctant-to-get-involved twin sister, Priscilla. She wants to find her missing sister, of course, but she also wants to find a shimmer of hope that her life won’t always be the way it is right now and that beauty sometimes exists in the place where you least expect to find it."
Discussion Questions from Susan Meissner
ReplyDelete1. A Seahorse in the Thames opens with Alexa realizing she is falling in love with Stephen after knowing him less than a week. Why do you think that has happened? Why does it surprise her? Would it surprise you if you were Alexa?
2. Alexa thinks of Priscilla as her smarter half; her mirror image—only wiser, more intuitive. Is Priscilla really more intelligent than Alexa? Why does Alexa have this view of Priscilla?
3. Clement the seahorse serves as a metaphor in the story for finding beauty in unexpected places. Has this ever happened to you? Describe a time in your life when you knelt down to hunt for something lovely in a place where it didn’t seem like it could exist.
4. Discuss the twins’ mother, Eileen Poole. What are her flaws? What are her strengths? How does she deal with tragedy? Can you identify with her?
5. What do you think of Priscilla’s decision to cut off communication with her father, escape to Europe and maintain minimal contact with Alexa and her mother? What about her decision to keep Isabel a secret? Do you empathize? Why or why not?
6. How do you think Alexa and Rebecca’s relationship changed after Rebecca’s accident? Why do you suppose it affected Alexa differently than everyone else?
7. Discuss why Alexa likes living near the ocean. What does her view of the ocean say about her character?
8. Alexa’s motivation to find Rebecca after she has disappeared eclipses everyone else’s. Why do you suppose that is true? How would you have reacted?
9. Does Alexa’s infant brother Julian play a role in the story? Describe what that might be.
10. When Alexa found the check from Gavin McNeil in Rebecca’s shoebox, what went through your mind? Did your opinion of Rebecca change? Did it change when it was revealed why she had the check?
11. What do you think happened the night Rebecca and Leanne were in the car accident? Start with what you think Rebecca told Leanne before she came to pick her up. What happened next?
12. Priscilla comes back to the United States not so much to help find Rebecca but for another reason entirely. What is that reason? How does she accomplish it? What do you think of how she confronted her father?
13. Alexa describes the ache of loving people as the “most wonderful pain in the world.” What does she mean by this? Do you agree? Why or why not?
14. What was your reaction to Rebecca’s reason for disappearing? Joy for her? Fear?
15. Alexa ends her narrative with a firm hand on that lovely thing called hope. Where do you see Alexa in a year’s time?
16. What does Rebecca’s letter, which is the epilogue, communicate to you? What is its purpose for the story itself? Read it aloud and discuss.
**http://www.susanmeissner.com/ASITTQs.pdf