- All of Audrey’s students are nervous about joining her class. Have you ever taken a night class? What was your experience like? Would you ever join a life drawing class?
- Many characters in this book are single parents. How is parenting portrayed in the novel and how is each parent different? Are you a single parent yourself or do you know any single parents?
- What do you make of Irene? Do you think she is a good person? Why or why not?
- Michael kicked his sixteen-year-old son out of the house because he was a drug addict. Do you think he made the right decision? Would you have made the same choice?
- Zarek is keeping a secret for most of the novel. What is that secret? Why do you think he is finally able to reveal it by the end of the book?
- Do you think it is fair for Carmel to ask Michael for help? Or do you think she is asking too much of him?
- When Valerie meets Barry for the first time she says to Michael: “You’re showing a boy you didn’t know existed up to a few weeks ago more attention than Ethan or I ever got from you. You failed as a father so you thought you’d try your hand at being a grandfather, is that it?” Why is Valerie so angry? Do you think she is too hard on Michael or does she have good reason to be upset?
- Jackie is very reluctant to model for the life drawing class, but she ultimately gives in. How do you think her experience of modeling changes her? Would you ever be brave enough to do what she does?
- Audrey is not a conventionally attractive woman, but Michael finds himself drawn to her. Why do you think that is?
- When does James’s relationship with Jackie change? Why is he able to open up to her?
- Irene makes a dramatic choice at the end of the book. Do you agree with her decision? Do you think she was being selfish or doing the right thing for her family?
- When Audrey first meets Michael, she finds him extremely unlikeable, but her feelings for him slowly shift. Why?
- How does Michael change over the course of the novel? If you were in his shoes, would you make the same choices he does regarding Carmel?
- After the last drawing class, Audrey reflects on how the class turned out and how her students got along with each other: “Nothing dramatic had happened at all. They’d interacted at the break, they’d chatted politely with each other, and that had been that…She’d done her best and that was all anyone could do.” Is Audrey’s interpretation correct? Did anything dramatic or life-changing happen to her or any of her students as a result of her class?