Atlas of Love book club guide
- Which of the three main characters do you identify with most? Who do you identify with least? Do these three seem too different to be such close friends? Do you have friends with whom you don't have much in common, but you love them to death anyway? What holds friendships like these together?
- Janey talks a lot about family versus friendship. What other kinds of families are there in this book besides Janey's very traditional one with her parents and her grandmother? Which of the relationships in this book feel like family and which like friendship? What's the difference between a group of friends and a group of friends who become family?
- When Dan finds out Jill is pregnant, he argues that he should have the right to choose an abortion, that the decision to have the baby or not shouldn't be Jill's alone just because she's the woman. Are you sympathetic to his argument? Do you think he's right here?
- What does Atlas lose and what does he gain from his non-traditional upbringing?
- Janey keeps comparing life to literature and literature to life. How do life and literature overlap in this book? And how do life and literature or books overlap in your life?
- Janey forgives Jill at the end of the book. Do you? What has Jill done that seems unforgivable? Why might she have done it? To what extent are her actions understandable and her fears well founded?
- All three of the main characters seem more or less paired up by the end of the novel. Which of these relationships seem like they'll last and which seem like they might be headed for breakups? Do you like the guys?
- What has Janey learned from her grandmother by the end of the book? What are the most important lessons you've learned from loved ones you've lost?
- Janey argues that the wedding at the end is really for the three of them - herself, Jill, and Katie. For better and for worse. In what ways is their relationship like a marriage?
- Where do you see these characters in five years? Janey? Katie? Jill? Atlas?