The Grapevine

From bestselling authors Alexandra Sokoloff and Craig Robertson, The Grapevine is a thrilling mystery featuring a quirky and relentless female protagonist, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.

How far would you go to find your missing child?

Lou Gomersall's going as far as it takes. And there's no turning back.

When her nineteen-year-old daughter Abby disappears, Lou embarks on a reckless road trip in the family RV, scouring the highways and back roads of California. Through desert and mountains, into the woods, and to the ocean's edge.

A year later, the police don't believe Lou's theory that four other missing young women have been taken by the same elusive predator. So, when another college sophomore vanishes, Lou jumps on the fresh trail, enlisting millennial #vanlifers, Gen Z entrepreneurs, boomer RVers, homeless sages, truck stop prostitutes, and everyone in between in her do-or-die mission to rescue Abby ...

Or kill the man who took her.

These discussion questions were provided by the publisher, Blackstone Publishing.

Book club questions for The Grapevine by Alexandra Sokoloff; Craig Robertson

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

We all believe that we would do anything to find a missing loved one. Lou actually goes out and does it. Do you think you would go to the
same lengths that she does, in the same circumstances?

Lou is able to search for Abby because both she and her husband Brian have good jobs. It would be a very different story if they didn’t
have that economic stability and the protection of their privilege. Do you feel Lou is sometimes exploiting that privilege? As she herself says:
“When she had to, she could out-Karen the best of them.”

Were you uncomfortable with how Lou barged into police investigations? Or did you feel you would do the same thing if you had to?

When non-Californians think of California they usually picture LA, San Francisco, the beach, and Disneyland. Does the book give you a bigger picture of California?

If you grew up in California, do you know the locations of the book? Have you done some of the drives that Lou does?

Do you have a vanlife or RV life fantasy, or have you been out on the road in a similar way? After reading the book, are you more or less tempted to do it?

Lou and her husband Brian have made very different choices about how they deal with Abby’s disappearance. Do you think both choices are justified? Do you think women are in general more willing to consider the worst-case scenario when a young woman or child is abducted? If so, why?

The story of a grieving mother searching the world for her missing daughter is ancient, going back to Demeter scouring the world for abducted Persephone, and laying waste to everything in her path in the process. Why is that story still so powerful today?

When you were reading, did you think that Lou would find Abby? What details of the story led you to your decision?

We are in a fashion cycle of alarmingly thin women and a political cycle in which women are being told to shut up, or being canceled for speaking out. Lou has chosen to live life large. How can we encourage and support more women and girls to live their own largest lives?

The Grapevine Book Club Questions PDF

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