Book Club Follow-Up!

Hi Everyone,

First, a big thanks to all who made it to our kick-off book club! It was a small but enthusiastic group and we hope to welcome you to our next one. And thank you to our fearless moderator Pilar Garcia-Brown!

For those who couldn’t make it but are still interested in the discussion about ALL THIS COULD BE DIFFERENT by Sarah Thanks Mathews, Pilar shared her talking points:

1. One of the things that I responded to in this novel is its reverence for friendship. We see complicated, messy people find each other and try to care for each other–through the big and small joys and tragedies of life. What did you make of this novel’s portrait of friendship? Did it feel authentic to you on the page? 

2. There’s an interesting tension throughout the novel surrounding what we owe to our friends. I would argue that the novel makes the case that our friends are worth everything–and, yet, under late-stage capitalism, that often means money. What did you make of this? Of Amit sending KJ thousands of dollars? Of Tig asking Sneha for money? (Even Thom feeling owed a job by Sneha?)

3. Let’s talk about Sneha’s relationship to her parents–and what she’s able and unable to confront. What do you make of what happened to her parents? And, then, what was your reaction when she told Marina that “[her parents] are no longer with [her]”? (Pg.98) 

• Did Sneha’s trip to South India to see her parents change the way you viewed their relationship at all? What about her mother’s reaction when Sneha says she was abused by her uncle? 

4. There are moments throughout the novel where Sneha messes up–where she recognizes her own biases but can’t seem to step out of them. Why do you think it was important for the author to include this? 

5. One of my favorite moments in the whole book is when Tig lets Sneha know that they’re going to use they/them pronouns going forward. Sneha responds with, “I may not understand everything to do with this, but like, respect is free. Costs me nothing to call you what you want to be called, like maybe I’ll forget, but I love you. Generally our friendship is not work, whatever you may say, but an ongoing pleasure, pretty much any day. If this is what you want, if you like a galaxy or a rocket ship or an asteroid versus a lady, that’s fine, yo. I can do a bit of work and call you what-the-hell-ever you want to be called” (165). Let’s talk about this. What do you think the novel has to say about seeing people as they are? 

6. Let’s talk about Peter (Sneha’s boss) and the ways in which he takes advantage of her labor–and the way his language masks what he’s doing. What did you make Sneha’s relationship to work, and the (ultimately precarious) position it puts her in?

7. Let’s talk about Amy and the Fiance. How do you think living there shapes Sneha’s relationship to home and comfort? And how do we think about this storyline in the context of larger, systemic issues of housing insecurity? (For a bit of context: as you might have seen in her bio, the author is a member of Bed-Stuy Strong, a mutual aid group based in Brooklyn. Does that shape how you see the Amy storyline?)

8. Let’s talk about the scene where Sneha goes to the food pantry. She says, “Through all of this I felt a terrible dislocating shame, a feeling that choked me with its fumes, that refused to let my mind turn from my parents, of how they would feel if they saw me now. I could never tell them this, the same way I could never let Marina or my friends know how skewed the image they had of me was, how deep my failure ran” (196). What do you make of this?

9. Let’s talk about Tig’s vision, and about how Rion comes to be. What does it mean to reimagine community and how we live together? Do you think Tig’s vision successfully comes to life? 

10. We have to talk about Marina. What did you all make of their relationship–of their push/pull. What do you think they meant to each other, and represented for each other? 

11. In an interview with Vogue, the author says, “The ending in All This Could Be Different can also serve, in my opinion, as a litmus test for how hopeful or pessimistic an individual reader might be.” So, what did you all make of the ending?

Have a good writing and reading week, everyone!

Abrazos,

Cristina