Reader's Choice Book Club--Frisco Public Library discussion
This topic is about
Happiness for Beginners
2025 Meetings
>
January - Happiness for Beginners
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
https://friscolibrary.bibliocommons.c...
The link above will take you to the library's website, where you can find the Zoom link, meeting ID, and password
Mod
1. Helen decides to go into the wilderness because she thinks she needs to learn to be more brave. At first, in fact, she's
hoping to turn herself into a tough guy like Chuck Norris ("Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.") She doesn't
become that kind of brave --- but what other strengths does she find in herself?
2. Helen comes to see the kids on the hiking trip very differently as time goes on --- particularly Beckett. How does their
relationship evolve?
3. Helen's relationship with her brother Duncan changes quite a bit during the story. What about her time on the trip ---
those experiences with those people --- allows her to see him differently? Would what GiGi told her on the day she
paints her portrait have had the same impact if Helen hadn't gone on the trip?
4. When Helen worries about Jake being ten years younger than she is, Grandma GiGi says, "You know that doesn't
matter." Does it matter? In what ways are Helen and Jake well-suited to each other? In what ways do you think they'll
clash?
5. Helen's a bit of a fish out of water. At one point, wondering what she's even doing there, she said, "When Duncan
first told me about this survival course, I'd been planning a trip to Paris. I'd given up Paris for the wisdom of the
wilderness." Have you ever forced yourself to do anything scary, or hard, or outside your comfort zone because you
thought it would help you get stronger or wiser?
6. Windy says that "getting what you want doesn't make you happy" and "happiness is more about appreciation than
acquisition." What do you think? Windy is a complicated mixture of likable friend and romantic foil. Was she an
appealing character to you?
7. There's something Helen really, really wants in the story that she doesn't get. What do you think she'll take away
from that disappointment? How do you think she'll learn from it?
8. Were there any particular quotes that stood out for you? Why?
A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It's supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother's even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can't imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls.
Yet, despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen's own little life seem bigger, too. And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found.