Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Welcome to Beach Town by Susan Wiggs

1. Why do you think Susan Wiggs chose these words from Plato as the book's epigraph: "They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth"? Does this line ring true to you?
2. At the Thornton Academy orientation, Nikki hears the headmaster's welcoming speech as "we are all equal here, blah blah blah" and thinks "Yeah, right." Why is she skeptical? How does inequality play out at Thornton? What does inequality look like in Nikki's hometown of Alara Cove?
3. What did you make of Nikki's father, Guy Graziola? What effect—good and bad—did his parenting style have on Nikki? How did it shape the teenager she was when we first meet her and the woman she became later in the book?
4. Cal tells Nikki that her bombshell commencement speech was "kind of badass," to which she replies "Kind of stupid." What's your opinion? Would you have done the same if you'd been in Nikki's shoes?
5. What did you think of Nikki's decision to follow Johnny to Australia and remake her life on the professional surf circuit? What paths would have been open to her if she had stayed in Alara Cove instead?
6. Why do you think Guy never told Nikki the truth about her mother's death? Was that the right call? How did learning the truth affect Nikki?
7. Nikki's relationship with Mark McGill is one of the most deeply formative relationships in her life, and leads her to make the commencement speech that forever changes her future. But what about her other friendships, for example, with Shasta, Cal, and Carmella? How does each of those friendships affect the direction of Nikki's life?
8. How did Zoe Camden's accidental death mirror Mark McGill's's death so many years earlier? Do you feel either of them received a measure of justice? What about the Sanger family, particularly Jason Sanger? Were they ultimately held accountable for their actions?
9. At the end of the story, Nikki is once again called upon to speak hard truths in public. How has she changed from when she first does this as a teenager? How is Alara Cove's response different this time around?
10. Nikki later reflects, "She'd never gone to college. She'd never made a world-changing discovery. She'd never won a fancy prize…But she'd distinguished herself by making a life that mattered in a place that meant the world to her." What is Nikki's greatest achievement in this book? Which aspects of her journey to you most identify with?
11. What becomes of Nikki and Cal, Guy and Gloria, and all the characters of this book in the years after it ends? What do you think the future holds for them?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of William Morrow. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.