The Alice
Network
By Kate
Quinn
(Tansley Reads Rating: 80%)
Icebreaker
We sent out an email asking everyone to wear a
favourite/meaningful/interesting hat.
Talk about this hat, or one
you may have had, that you loved, or was significant to you.
Questions
1. Female friendship is a big theme in this
novel. How does each friendship grow and change over the course of events? (Eve and Charlie, Eve and Lili, Lili and
Violette, Eve and Violette?)
2. What was your impression of the day-to-day
descriptions of working as a spy? What part of the work could you do?
3. Eve’s spy journey becomes more difficult when
she becomes Rene’s lover. While Eve hates him, it becomes complicated when
they’re intimate. What were your impressions of their relationship?
4. Finn Kilgore and Captain Cameron have very similar stories. How are they
similar and why do their lives have such different outcomes?
5. Why was Charlie so
obsessed with finding her cousin Rose Fournier?
6. The disappearance of
Charlie’s cousin provides the story’s driving search. How did Rose’s fate change the focus of the
search?
7. Charlie,
Eve and Finn each have their own secrets that slowly come out as the book goes
on. What is it about their past and secrets that made them kindred spirits?
8. Each
of the three main characters wants to fix things. What does “fixing” mean
to Charlie, to Eve and to Finn?
9. There
were at least 3 suggested scenarios when Eve and Charlie found Rene – a) they would kill him; b) report him to the authorities to be tried,
punished and humiliated; or c) that he would escape from them and disappear once again to start a new life. Were you satisfied with Rene’s ending or
would you have preferred a different one for him?
10. In this book and others, we’ve seen instances
of sadism. Is sadism an inherent human
quality or is it only manifested in times of war and upheaval?
11. There were
numerous horrific episodes portrayed in this book. Which one affected you the most? (e.g.: Rene crushing Eve’s knuckles; the killing of
citizens and burning the town of
Oradour-sur-Glane; Rene shooting young
man in back for stealing some money;
killing of Rene)
12. Although Violette knows that Eve has been
tortured and drugged, she blames Eve for Lili’s capture and death, why?
13. Quick round: What did you
think of the book? Is there anything you want to discuss that we missed?
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