How does the novel differentiate between Ben’s self-serving brutality and the pragmatic, often violent, survival tactics adopted by Hannah, Jackson, and Emmy? Analyze specific moments to argue whether the novel ultimately justifies the protagonists’ actions as morally necessary.

How does What We Did to Survive employ true-crime genre conventions to build suspense and explore psychological trauma?

Examine how Hannah’s ambition to become a trauma nurse complicates her role as the story’s first-person narrator. In what ways does her medical and psychological knowledge make her perspective both uniquely insightful and, particularly after the final twist is revealed, potentially unreliable?

Beyond its symbolic associations with destruction, survival, and hope, how does the motif of fire function as a measure of character? Compare Ben’s use of fire as a tool for chaotic self-preservation with Hannah’s methodical use of fire as a beacon for collective rescue to explore their opposing ethical frameworks.

The Be-Yacht-Ch functions as a microcosm of the characters’ flawed social world. Analyze how the vessel’s physical deterioration, from the dead radio to the missing keel, parallels the collapse of trust, civility, and social order among the teenagers trapped aboard.

While Hannah and Emmy are best friends, the novel positions them as foils whose differing worldviews create both conflict and codependence. Analyze how Emmy’s romantic impulsiveness and Hannah’s pragmatic caution initially clash, and consider how their survival experiences reshape their perspectives and relationship by the novel’s end.

Emmy undergoes significant psychological change throughout the novel. How does her character arc complicate the distinction between innocence and survival? To what extent does the novel portray her transformation as a loss, a necessity, or both?

The novel systematically strips Ben of the societal structures that empower his privilege. Analyze how the loss of access to his wealth, family influence, and social status reshapes his role within the group and exposes the strengths and limitations of the identity he has constructed..