Are the social flaws of mobile technology inherent to its design, or do they point to wider flaws outside of it? Discuss your answer based on the depiction of this technology in the novel.

What does the novel’s alternating perspective structure suggest about the subjective experience of time and memory during prolonged separation? How do Song and River experience time?

Compare and contrast the “found families” of the courtyard house and Phyllis’s apartment? What do their common qualities add to the novel’s larger social critique?

How does the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic in the final part of the narrative underscore the novel’s most prominent themes?

Beyond validating her choices, does the novel offer any critique of the self-destructive extent of Song’s maternal sacrifice? What might such a critique imply?

Evaluate the recurring setting of the subway station as an emblem of Keller’s critique of urbanization.

How does the novel’s critique of the waimai gig economy drive a wider critique of hustle culture and late-stage capitalism in countries like China?

What do the clothespin dolls reveal about the characters’ changing relationship to the past and the memory of Blue?