I’ve had a great time the past few years joining book club conversations. I’ve met some amazing women through our shared love of book. Feel free to contact me here if you’d like me to call in, video in, or visit your book club!

Discussion questions for The Husband Hour

1. When we meet Lauren, she has carved out a reclusive life for herself at the Jersey Shore. Was her initial decision to seek isolation understandable? When we catch up with her four years later, is it still a reasonable choice or is Beth right to see her daughter as frozen?

2. Early in the book, Beth is “overwhelmed with one of the worst feelings a mother could feel in the face of her child’s pain: powerlessness.” In what ways does she succeed or fail to balance her need to help her daughters with also letting them manage their own lives? 

3. Is Matt’s quest to track down Lauren by any means necessary understandable in the beginning? By the end? 

4. What was your initial impression of Lauren’s sister, Stephanie? Do your feelings about her change over the course of the book and if so, how?

5. Lauren tells her nephew, “Sisters argue sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything, really.” At what point does it become clear that their issues might go beyond typical sisterly rivalry?

6. The family beach house, The Green Gable, means different things to the members of the Adelman family. How might their lives turned out differently if they hadn’t had the shared home?

7. Lauren keeps her past boxed up -- literally and figuratively. What role do memories play in this story?

8. Both Lauren and Stephanie kept secrets. Were any of these secrets justified? How could they both have handled the truth differently or better?

9.  In the end, how did you feel about who Rory was as a man? As a husband? 

10. What role does forgiveness play in this story? Does everyone who gets forgiveness deserve it?