Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Yiyun Li states her core facts directly and warns readers not to expect a story of healing, which is an unconventional way to begin a book. How did this directness affect your expectations and engagement with the rest of the memoir?

2. The author positions this memoir as a companion to her novel Where Reasons End, which she calls “the book for Vincent” (6). How did knowing about that fictional dialogue shape your reading of this nonfiction “book for James”? If you’ve read Where Reasons End, how did the two books speak to each other for you?

3. After finishing the book, what feeling or idea has stayed with you the most? Did you find the author’s philosophical approach to her tragedy to be challenging, clarifying, or something else entirely?

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

1. Li makes a conscious choice to survive her loss by “thinking, rather than feeling” (18), turning to logic and structured activities. Have you ever found intellectual engagement, like studying a complex subject or focusing on a technical skill, to be a useful tool when navigating a difficult period in your own life?

2. The author develops the concept of placeholders to describe daily activities like gardening or practicing piano that structure time without needing to be therapeutic. Think about your own routines. What are some of the placeholders you use to mark time and move through your days?

3. The principle of radical acceptance is central to the memoir, involving confronting unchangeable facts without argument. Can you think of a time when you had to practice a form of radical acceptance? What did that process look like for you?

4. Li turns to writers like Camus and Shakespeare for intellectual frameworks to help her think. Do you have any books, artists, or thinkers you turn to when you need to make sense of the world, rather than escape from it? What do they offer you?

5. A deep respect for free will is a core value in Li’s family, and she extends it to her sons’ final decisions. How do you navigate the balance between wanting to protect the people you care about and respecting their personal autonomy?

6. Brigid’s distinction between useless, self-pitying “pebbles” and the unmovable “boulder” of loss helps Li manage her thoughts. Does this metaphor resonate with you? How do you distinguish between productive worries and thoughts that are better kicked aside?

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

1. The memoir directly challenges the popular five-stage model of grief and the cultural pressure to “heal” or find “closure.” In what ways does Li’s approach offer a counter-narrative to how Western societies typically talk about loss? What do you think of her refusal to use the word “grieving”?

2. Li catalogs many clumsy and even cruel responses from others, which she calls “minor comedies.” What do these interactions reveal about the social scripts we rely on when faced with someone else’s tragedy? Why do you think these scripts so often fail?

3. Li’s traumatic childhood with an abusive mother in China shaped her into an “escape artist” with immense emotional restraint. How does this backstory complicate or inform our understanding of resilience, parenting, and mental health, especially when compared to dominant Western psychological frameworks?

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

1. What is the effect of Li’s refusal to build toward narrative climax or resolution? How does this reflect her broader message about herself and/or loss?

2. How does Li’s preference for precise, clinical diction shape the emotional tone of the narrative? How does this tone compare to other memoirs about death that you have read, like Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) or Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying (2007)? Discuss the merits and limitations of both styles.

3. This memoir doesn’t follow a linear timeline, instead moving between past and present through association. How does this structure reinforce Li’s argument against neat, progressive narratives of recovery? What effect did this have on you as a reader?

4. The author’s insistence on precise, factual language is a core element of her method. How does her choice to use words like “died” and “suicide” instead of euphemisms contribute to the theme of Radical Acceptance of Facts?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. The memoir is conceived as a “placeholder” for James, crafted with logic and thought to honor his essence. If you were to create a placeholder to remember someone or something important, what form might it take? What qualities would it need to have?

2. If you had to choose a piece of music or a single image that you feel captures the tone of Things in Nature Merely Grow, what would it be and why?