How do Lulu’s childhood memories illuminate her feelings about or understanding of her present?

Discuss the use of foreshadowing in the novel. What plot elements are hinted at before they happen, and why? How do shifting tone and atmosphere contribute to the novel’s structure?

Analyze the titles of the novel’s two parts, “The Window” and “The Mirror.” What do they mean, and why?

Examine the idea of identity in the novel. How does Lulu’s loss of aspects of her whole personhood, such as her name, college career, and creative interests, define her?

Read Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and discuss what elements and tropes Maegan Church borrows from this earlier work and how she uses or subverts them.

Analyze access to control and authority in the novel. How are power dynamics in marriage, friendship, or professional settings depicted? Who has power over whom, and why?

Lulu is an unreliable narrator whose experience of the world does not always match reality. What techniques does Church use to slowly make it clear to the reader that they should read around Lulu’s narration?

Compare the novel’s mothers and their relationships to their children. How does the novel differentiate between motherhood in Lulu’s generation and that of her mother? How do the different women of Lulu’s circle approach their roles as mothers?