Spoiler Warning And How To Use This
Is The Wedding People your book club’s pick this month? Good choice. It gives you plenty to argue about, and nobody leaves without an opinion on Lila.
Quick warning first. These questions spoil the whole book, including the ending, and the book deals with a suicide attempt and divorce. If you haven’t finished, bookmark this and come back.
Here is my short answer for your group. Bring snacks, and bring a strong feeling about the bride. I have thirteen questions and a few bonus prompts, grouped by the people in the book, and you can use them in any order.
A tip for running the night. If your group is big, split into teams, one for Lila, one for Phoebe and one for Gary, and have each defend their person for five minutes. Then swap. You will be surprised how fast people change their minds.
The Cast In One Minute
Before the questions, a fast cast list so everyone starts on the same page.
Phoebe Stone is forty, a Victorian literature professor from Saint Louis, newly divorced. Lila is the bride, twenty eight, rich, controlling and very lonely. Gary is the groom, a widowed doctor of forty. Juice is his eleven year old daughter, who has lost her mother and her virtual dog.
Jim is the best man and Gary’s late wife’s brother. Marla is Gary’s sister, a mayor with a secret. Patricia is Lila’s mother, who drinks in the afternoon and once posed nude. Matt is Phoebe’s ex husband, and Mia is the woman he left her for. Pauline and Carlson run the hotel, and Nat and Suz are the bridesmaids who barely know Lila anymore.
Questions On The Opening
The week runs from Tuesday to Monday, and Phoebe is the only guest in the lobby who isn’t a wedding person. Pauline keeps asking if she is here for the wedding, and the hotel feels like a stage set. Keep that in mind as you read these.
Question one. The book opens with Phoebe saying she is at the hotel to kill herself, and then it turns funny almost at once. There is a coconut pillow, a cocktail called Vacation in a Cup, and a woman sneaking cigarettes on a balcony. Did the humor feel respectful to you, or did it feel flip about something serious? Where did the jokes help, and where did you wince?
Question two. Phoebe changes her mind not because anyone says the perfect thing. She wants to hear the end of a toast. A bad speech by Patricia keeps her alive. Why do you think the author chose something so small? Have you ever kept going for a reason that sounds silly out loud?
A follow up for your group. Phoebe says she has always finished every book and every movie, even a bad one. Does that make her curiosity the thing that saves her?
Questions On Lila
Question three. Lila can be exhausting. She walks into rooms uninvited, complains about mattresses, and says things like “I am the victim here.” Is she a spoiled bride, a lost twenty eight year old, or both? When did your opinion of her change?
Question four. Lila’s father spent his last weeks asking her to marry before he died, and she spends his money on a six day wedding. Her question to Phoebe, “what can you do?”, is the first useful thing anyone says. How does grief shape her choices? Is the wedding a gift to her father, or a way to avoid mourning him?
One more for the room. On the bachelorette night Lila shouts that she doesn’t want to marry Gary. The next morning she says of course the wedding is on. Is she lying, scared or avoiding? And why does she only admit the truth to a stranger?
Keep in mind the small details. Lila talks all day with her friends, but she says she cannot call them when her father died. What does that say about how she makes friends? Is Phoebe really her friend, or her therapist?
Questions On Phoebe And Matt
Question five. Phoebe’s marriage ends in layers: five rounds of IVF, a miscarriage at ten weeks, a husband who keeps saying everything should be fun, and a flirty text she can’t decide how to spell. Where did the marriage actually break? Is it Matt’s affair, or something older that the affair simply exposed?
Question six. Matt shows up at her door the night of the rehearsal dinner, says he made a mistake and spends the night. In the end, Phoebe still says no. Did you want her to take him back for even a minute? Was that scene a setback, or the proof she needed?
Mia deserves a minute too. Phoebe is angrier at Mia than at Matt, then admits Mia was right that the marriage was already over. Is it easier to blame the other woman?
Bonus prompt. Matt wears the same belt he wore on their first date, and Phoebe touches it again and feels nothing new. What do objects like the belt, the Discman and the emerald dress say about her memory?
Questions On Gary
Question seven. Gary says he feels honest and alive around Phoebe, but he is engaged to Lila. He admits he didn’t call off the wedding because he did not trust himself. Is he a good man in a bad position, or a passive man who lets other people decide? Compare him with Matt.
Question eight. Phoebe and Gary spend a whole week falling for each other, and the book never lets them kiss. She calls it a love without expectation. Why do you think the author held back? Would a kiss have made the ending stronger or weaker?
Gary also describes meeting Wendy: an artist standing before a painting of thirty shades of red, who showed him how to see them. Compare how he talks about Wendy with how he talks about Lila. Which sounds like love to you?
Gary also says happiness is not a place you reach. It shows up and disappears like a bubble. Do you agree? And is it a comfort to Phoebe, or a warning that the feeling between them can’t last?
Questions On Juice And Grief
Question nine. Juice holds a funeral for a virtual dog, and the adults don’t know what to say. The first adult to take her seriously is a stranger. Why does Phoebe understand her better than her own family? Who gets to grieve in this book, and who is told to stop?
Question ten. Nobody can say Wendy’s name around Lila. Juice insists on her old nickname. Gary says he cannot say “my dead wife” either. How does the book show that grief looks different in each person? What do you do when someone you love is marrying around a ghost?
Jim, Marla And Patricia
Three smaller characters steal many scenes, so give them a few minutes. Jim says what no one else will. At the rehearsal dinner he tells Lila she melts down over lemon things on spoons, and that Gary just stands there. Is Jim honest, or just angry that he lost her? He also keeps talking about a seaplane he has never started building. Who in this book is waiting to start?
Marla is cruel, then funny, then sympathetic. She admits an affair with a judge, and she and her husband Robert try to repair things by sexting. Was it right for the book to let her stay messy? And Patricia, the mother, says all anyone wants is permission to stand naked and be their damned selves. Is she right?
Questions On Weddings And Money
Question eleven. Phoebe wrote a maid of honor speech that said every wedding is a waste. Then she says it on the steps to Lila, and it gives Lila permission to leave. Is the book against weddings, or only against weddings as performance? Think about the palate cleansers, the vintage car and the fireworks.
Another angle. Lila spent a million dollars of her father’s money, yet the best day of the week is a free morning of surfing and fried clams. What does the book think money can and cannot buy?
Questions On Books Inside The Book
Phoebe is a Victorianist, and this book talks to other books all the time. She finishes Mrs. Dalloway, a book she abandoned because of its suicide. She keeps comparing herself to Jane Eyre, the novel with a ruined wedding. She visits Edith Wharton’s old house.
Question twelve. Why Mrs. Dalloway? Why Jane Eyre? Phoebe turns the hotel’s backward books so their spines face out. What does that small act say about how she wants to live? Which book would you have picked for Phoebe?
Questions On The Ending
Question thirteen. Phoebe ends the book with a job, a dog named Frank and a mansion with gargoyles. Her last scene with Gary is a joke about ghosts and a promise to call. Did you want more? Is the ending hopeful, too neat or just right? And does a woman need a new place to feel alive, or is that too convenient?
The final scene is a farewell to the hotel. Phoebe tips the man in burgundy, just as she did on arrival, and steps out into the world. Compare her first day to her last. What has changed in how she walks, dresses and speaks to strangers?
Last thing to argue about. The book never says if Phoebe and Gary end up together. Take a vote in your group before you leave.
Content Notes And Wrap Up
Content notes for your group: suicide attempt and suicidal thoughts, miscarriage and infertility, divorce and infidelity, grief, explicit sex and strong language, and a short scene with drugs.
If anyone in your group is struggling, please talk to someone you trust or a local crisis line. You matter.
That’s my thirteen. My favorite is question twelve, but I’d love to hear yours in the comments. A written guide with these questions is on bookexplained.com. Thanks for watching, and happy reading. If this helped, please like the video and subscribe.
