Before We Were Innocent

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences

1. The novel explores how adolescent friendships can be simultaneously nurturing and destructive. How does this portrayal compare to your own experiences with friendship during your formative years?

2. Bess struggles with profound guilt and trauma following Evangeline’s death, withdrawing from public life. Have you ever experienced a situation where you needed to retreat from the world to process difficult emotions? How did you navigate that period?

3. Throughout the novel, characters keep secrets from each other, often with devastating consequences. Can you recall a time when withholding information in a friendship created complications? What did you learn from that experience?

4. Joni builds a public persona that differs dramatically from her private self. Have you ever felt pressure to present a curated version of yourself to others? What was that experience like?

5. The narrative explores how a single traumatic event reshapes Bess’s entire life trajectory. Has there been a pivotal moment that fundamentally altered your life path or perspective? Do you relate to Bess’s inability to move forward?

6. Bess’s brother, Steven, dedicates considerable time to defending her online, showing his deep commitment to clearing her name. Has someone in your life ever stood by you during a difficult time when others wouldn’t? How did their support impact you?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. The novel draws parallels to real-world cases like those of Amanda Knox and Jennifer Levin, examining how the media often vilifies women involved in criminal cases. How have you seen this pattern play out in contemporary true crime coverage?

2. How does Berman’s portrayal of influencer culture critique the authenticity of social media personalities in our society? What aspects of this criticism resonate most strongly with your observations?

3. The book explores how media narratives often characterize women as either “sinners” or “saints.” Where do you see this binary representation of women in current news coverage or entertainment?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. How does Berman use the symbol of food throughout the novel to illustrate power dynamics between the characters, particularly Evangeline’s controlling nature?

2. The song “Time to Pretend” by MGMT serves as a significant motif in the story. How does this musical reference enhance the themes of youth, identity, and misrepresentation?

3. How does the author’s choice to tell the story through Bess’s perspective influence readers’ understanding of the events and other characters? What might readers have learned if Joni or Evangeline had also served as narrators?

4. Discuss how the narrative structure—alternating between 2008 and 2018—contributes to the building of suspense and revelation of truth. How would the impact of the story differ if it were told chronologically?

5. Both Before We Were Innocent and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl examine how media portrayals can distort public perception of women involved in mysterious circumstances. How do these novels differ in their approach to exploring media manipulation and the complexity of female characters?

6. How does the setting of Greece function as more than just a backdrop for the narrative? What qualities of the isolated island environment amplify the tensions between the characters? How does this novel compare to thrillers that make use of similar environments—for example, Lucy Foley’s The Guest List?