I love when you share my stories with your book club!
Here are some questions to get the conversation started:
In Finding Love, Edward struggles to remember certain things that are very important to him. We’ve all had folks among our friends and family who have struggled with memory issues. It’s disconcerting when someone can’t remember something you think they should know. But what happens when YOU are the one who can’t remember? What then? Do you wonder what other people might know about you, or how you fit into the bigger picture? Do you wonder what you’re missing?
They say that things often get worse before they get better, and Meg and Edward’s situation in Finding Love is certainly an example of that. Sometimes it seems like they take two steps back for every one step forward, but eventually they do get their happily ever after. Have there been times when you felt like your progress was more backward than forward, and that you’d never get where you were going?
There are several people in Finding Love that are struggling with hope: Meg hopes that Edward will remember everything they had together. Edward hopes that he can discover what’s missing in his life so he can regain a sense of normalcy. And poor George hopes he can keep the whole ship afloat long enough for everyone to right themselves. Hope can be a wonderful thing, a beacon pulling us forward through dark times. But at what point does hope become foolishness? What makes the difference between something that is preventing us from facing reality, and something worth striving for?
While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about forgiveness. In order to move forward in Finding Love, Meg has to forgive Edward for some of his actions. Edward has to figure out how to forgive himself for some of his actions. Given their feelings for each other, and the reasons behind Edward’s missteps, forgiveness comes relatively easy for these two. In real life, however, how do you determine how much forgiveness is just enough… or too much?
In Finding Love, Edward and Meg are a classic example of what I like to think of as the “Some Enchanted Evening” effect. Before they meet, they watch each other across a crowded room, and develop a sense of ‘knowing’ each other, despite being strangers. We probably all experience this to some degree, when we run into the same people again and again at places like the gym or on the subway. To what degree do you think our observations lend real insight into the other person’s nature? Or do they merely give us a false sense of familiarity, when we actually know nothing about them?
Kristen Casey 