Finding Grace

How did the first chapter set the tone for the rest of the novel?

Tom often wonders what Grace is thinking. After Honor passes away, she’s able to read Tom’s mind, and she sees parts of him that she couldn’t while she was alive. Have you ever wanted to know what your loved ones were thinking? Without this kind of glimpse into their subconscious, how well can we really know someone, with all of their facets and dark corners?

Lauren claims that she and Tom both told lies. But are all lies created equal? If not, what differentiates them? How did their respective lies affect the people around them? Discuss Lauren’s relationship with Tom and its evolution throughout the novel. When do you think Lauren’s feelings toward him developed? Do you think Honor had any clue while she was alive?

How does Tom’s story suggest that even genuinely good people get lost in the overwhelming emotions of new love? What are some impediments that Tom and Grace experience as two people finding love after loss?

Tom and Grace are both “acutely aware that after a certain age, no one ever gets into bed alone. There’s always someone else in the room in some form or another. Whether it’s holiday memories or drunken mistakes or ghosts, the past cannot be rewritten” (page 178). How do you think Tom’s ghosts shaped him and led him to Grace? How can our “ghosts” (and the lessons we learn from them) potentially prepare us for great things in our future?

This novel explores several chosen-family relationships—for Tom, Annie, and Oliver; for Grace, the Sunday Blues women, Zara, and Rebecca. What do you think it takes for people to feel bonded like “family”?

“Grief’s iron grip never weakens. You just become accustomed to its hand around your throat, moving forward but never moving on” (pages 44–45). Discuss how the characters in Finding Grace experience grief on their own time lines and in their own ways. How do they help one another when the metaphoric hand on their neck squeezes a little tighter?

“But children have a superpower we overlook” (page 308). How does Henry drive Tom’s and Grace’s evolution over the course of the novel? What kinds of things can kids teach us, and do you think it’s more about learning or unlearning?

Honor says, “When I died, Tom became a widower, a word that needs no further explanation. But there is no word in the English dictionary for a parent who loses a child. They remain the same: a father, a mother, suspended in time. Forever explaining, forever retelling, forever tethered to an indigestible loss” (pages 300–301). How does the absence of a succinct label for a parent who loses a child affect Tom? How did Tom’s loss of Chloe affect the way he parented Henry? What role did Henry play in Tom’s grieving process?

What role does fertility technology play in the novel, and why do you think secrets and lies seem to surround it?

As explored in Finding Grace, motherhood can take many forms and look very different for different women. Through Honor, Colette, Grace, Lauren, and the moms at Henry’s school, what examples of mothering does the novel present? Discuss how Honor and Grace are both Henry’s mother.

What do you make of Honor’s and Grace’s names? What do you imagine Grace and Tom will name their baby?

How does reading Honor’s memoir and children’s books help Tom, Henry, and Colette? How can Finding Grace—or any novel that explores love, loss, infertility, chosen-family, ghosts, moral dilemmas, etc.—help a reader experiencing something similar?