Beauty in the Broken Places Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Types of Stroke and our BookBrowse Review of Beauty in the Broken Places.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. The title of this book, Beauty in the Broken Places, speaks to brokenness and pain, but also to the beauty that can be found in places of suffering and hardship. It is inspired by the Ernest Hemingway quotation that is the book's epigraph: "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places." Discuss this quotation and examine how both these elements—beauty and brokenness—are at play in this story.
2. Allison speaks extensively about her support system and how she had to learn to rely on family and friends in a way she never had before. Discuss the importance of "the tribe" in getting through life's hardships. Which figures in this story struck you as particularly poignant figures of grace and love?
3. Lee Woodruff welcomes Allison to "the Club of the Bad Thing." Allison responds that it was "a club I wanted no part of." Discuss moments in your life when you felt as though you had suddenly been pulled into "the Club of the Bad Thing." How did you get through those times?

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