Questions Round 2

[Tiffany]

1. As Sloane and James reconnect, Sloane describes “emotions that are there, but without cause. Feelings that aren’t attached to memories and therefore meaningless.” To what extent are emotions tied to memory? How is memory anchored by emotions?

2. When do the adults in Sloane’s life lie to her? Were any of these lies justified? What differentiates white lies from harmful ones?

3. How does this novel support or challenge the idea of destiny?

4. Explain the epilogue: What is happening? Who is Allison?

5. What are your overall thoughts on this book? Did you like it? Will you read the sequels? Did you like or dislike the characters? Say whatever you want, no judgement here. :)

P.S. Most discussion questions were taken from here: http://books.simonandschuster.com/The...

[Jenniffer]

Ok. So... I finished, and I am so angry at this book. Right now I'm just going to answer question five; to give me a little more time to think out my answers for the rest.

5. I absolutely hated this book. It took forever to read and I had to force myself to finish. I thought it unrealistic in its portrayal of... Well everything. For a stand alone book I didn't really understand where It was trying to go. I mean did she ever hear of a plot diagram. The overall plot may "workout" across the following books, but I have no intention of reading them. I was surprised that when thinking about it I actually liked Sloane as a character, most of her conflict where things that were happening to her (out of her control). She didn't always make it easier on herself by consciously making choices that weren't the best. But she was/ and did think about the choices before making them. Even though the "right" choices were not clear, she wanted to DO right. I felt that absolutely everyone else was either a full blow stereotype or manipulative I know there are people like that but for everyone to be is unrealistic and a sad way to look at life.

[Tiffany]

I've realized that two sets of questions is waaaaay too much work. I'll just do one set next time, but here are my answers anyways. :)

1. Emotions are extremely tied to memories and unfortunately negative memories stick with us more than good memories do. It's insane to me how one single negative emotion---sadness, fear, pain, grief---will bring on an endless stream of other negative memories, thus feeding my emotion, and the only way to stop the endless stream is to either distract myself or force myself to think positive thoughts. I don't think that taking away those negative memories would necessarily make us happier people, though, nor do I think that taking away our happy memories would make us sad people. As "The Happiness Project" taught me, people are happiest when they are experiencing growth, so it isn't necessarily our experiences that determine our mood but rather whether or not we create an atmosphere of growth or stagnation when bad or good things happen to us.

2. Obviously Sloane's parents lie to her after her memories have been erased, and they lie about how her brother died and about her relationship with James. They did it out of love, wanting to protect her from her painful past, but in reality it only hurt her more because she suspected them of lying all along. But in the end, I think they hurt themselves more than they did Sloane, and I suspect they were so miserable themselves because they had to live with the guilt and shame of erasing their daughter's life and spending the rest of her new life lying to her. There are some sins that hurt others more than they do yourself, and then there are other sins that hurt yourself more than they do others. Lying tends to fall in the latter category.

3. The best example of this novel supporting destiny would be of Sloane and James falling in love all over again after having their memories erased, and even more so repeating the exact same significant moment with the ring and their first kiss at the river. I personally think that takes the idea of destiny to the extreme and made it unrealistic, but eh, whatever you wanna do, I guess.

4. I can't decide if Allison is just another girl going through the program or if she is actually Sloane, who used to be named Allison.

5. I didn't really like this book much either. I gave it two stars because I actually finished it, but in retrospect, I think I only finished it because it was for this book club. Normally I have a 50 page test with books, and if I'm still not interested by that point I quit reading it. I don't think this book would have actually passed that test. I thought that since this book was a dystopian novel it would be more exciting than it actually was, but it was instead incredibly UNexciting with very little plot development and no action until the very end, plus I think the whole "teenage love triangle" thing is overdone in young adult books. But on the positive side I think it approaches some dark topics in a unique and honest way and makes the reader think, so kudos for that. With all that said, I won't be reading the sequels, unless someone convinces me that the story has gotten 1000 times better!