The Summer Pact

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

1. What is your favorite destination in the book? Have you visited or lived in any of these places? What destination in the book would you most like to see?

2. Who is the character you most identify with? Who do you think has the most convincing or poignant storyline?

3. Has there ever been a time in your life when you changed location to step away from a problem or difficulty? How did your experience compare to Tyson, Lainey, and Hannah’s trip?

4. Hannah reflects at the end that the three of them kept the Summer Pact. How might this be like traditions you have or promises you’ve made with your friends?

5. Do you agree with Hannah that coming-of-age friendships, like those made in school years and college, are more formative? Of the friendships in your own life, what would you say makes them enduring?

6. Which of the characters would you most want for your friend? Why does that character most appeal to you?

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

1. Discuss the various characters’ observations on the different standards to which Black men and women are held.

2. Do you think the book deals appropriately with the impact of death by suicide on surviving loved ones?

3. Discuss the book’s emphasis on friendships in the context of recent reports that up to a third of young adults and at least half of adults living in the US say that they are lonely. Is friendship more important to think about in a world where so many interactions are online?

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

1. What did you think of the alternating first-person points of view? What did you learn when characters had a different reaction to a specific moment? How did this narrative structure shape your reading experience?

2. Discuss how each character’s family has an impact on them and how these relationships shape the character’s goals and challenges.

3. What does the setting of Capri offer the characters, in addition to a space to introduce new feelings and new dreams?

4. What do you think the novel is suggesting are the strongest foundations for friendships? How do you think family relationships compare?

5. What do their various destination choices say about the characters? What is suggested by the way they change their choices of destination from what they had originally planned?

6. In what ways would you say each of the three narrators shares a similar character arc? How do the others help them on their journey to self-awareness and maturity?