Kala

Which of the characters did you most identify with and why?

Did you change your mind about any of the characters while reading?

Why do you think Helen and Kala connect with each other so strongly? Who was the most complicated character in the book? Did you like or dislike this person? Why?

“The past is not real. Like, it doesn’t mean anything. The fifteen-year-old me I remember today isn’t the fifteen-year-old me I remembered when I was twenty-five, and it won’t be the fifteen-year-old I remember when I’m eighty. You know why? Because the past is just… random stuff, floating about the place. None of it means anything at all until you make a story out of it.” Do you agree or disagree with everything Aoife says here? Why/Why not?

Why do you think Joe’s chapters are written in the second person?

Who do you think is the main character of the book?

Why do you think there is no chapter from Kala’s perspective? “I realized I could be brave for her, braver than I could be for myself.” In what way do the characters bring out the best (and worst) in each other?

On their day out to Dublin, Helen tells Kala about her mother’s philosophy of time (p. 203-4). How does this show up in the book?

Why do you think Helen wanted to leave Ireland? Which character do you feel changed the most following the events of the teenage summer? Which character do you feel changes the most throughout the book?

Why do you think Aoife betrayed Kala?

Who do you think Mush would have become had it not been for the accident?

What do you think happens at the end of the novel? What do you think happens next for these characters?