MRS. EVERYTHING Book Club QUESTIONS
This reading group guide for Mrs. Everything includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
From Jennifer Weiner, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Who Do You Love and In Her Shoes, comes a smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places—and be true to themselves—in a rapidly evolving world. Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history—and herstory—as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
Jo and Bethie are very different people. But in what ways do you find them similar? Do their similarities outweigh their differences? How do their similarities cause problems in their relationship?
Forgiveness, of others and of the characters’ own selves, is an important theme in the novel. Discuss how the characters work through their conflicts and how they do or do not resolve the issues.
Compare and contrast how Jo and Bethie are influenced by their mother. Is there a defining element of their relationship with their mother? How does it weave its way into the sisters’ lives?
Mrs. Everything spans half of the twentieth century and the early part of the twenty-first. What period details make you feel immersed in each decade? Were there any details that you remembered from your own past? Were there details about life in earlier decades that surprised you? What effect did this have on your reading experience?
In Mrs. Everything, Jennifer Weiner has created many memorable secondary characters, from Mrs. Kaufman to Lila to Jo’s and Bethie’s partners and beyond. Did you have a favorite? What qualities made them come alive for you?
Were you ever frustrated by the choices Jo and Bethie made? Did you empathize with their choices, despite feeling frustrated?
Literature is full of sisters with complex relationships. Do Jo and Bethie remind you of other favorite sister duos? What is it about the sister relationship that captivates us as readers?
What draws Jo and Shelley together? After they’ve reunited, what keeps them together?
What do Bethie and Harold learn from each other throughout their relationship?
Because Mrs. Everything takes places over several decades, it touches on many political and social movements. Did you learn anything about American history while reading? Was there a cause or issue that particularly interested you?
When Lila visits Bethie for the summer, they have a heart-to-heart about the pressure Lila feels from her mother to be special and achieve great things. Bethie tells Lila that it comes from the lack of options the sisters had growing up in a different era: “Some girls did grow up and became doctors and lawyers and school principals. . . . A few girls did grow up and do things, and got those jobs, but for the rest of us, we were told that the most important thing was to be married, and be a mother. . . . She just doesn’t want that to be the only choice you have” (page 392). Though Lila does have more opportunities available to her than her mother and aunt did, she (and her generation) faces new challenges. Did you relate to Lila’s concerns?
How does faith—both religious and in a more general sense—inform Jo and Bethie? What does faith mean to the sisters?
Enhance Your Book Club
If your group hasn’t already read Jennifer Weiner’s novel In Her Shoes, consider reading it together and comparing its themes of sisterhood with those of Mrs. Everything. What similarities do you notice between the sisters in these two novels? What ideas and feelings does Jennifer Weiner explore in both?
Choose one of the eras from the novel and come to your book club dressed in clothes or donning fun accessories from the period. Pick a film set in that same decade and discuss how the director and Jennifer Weiner each evoke that moment in history.
Visit Jennifer Weiner’s website at www.jenniferweiner.com to learn more about her and her books, and follow her on Twitter @jenniferweiner.