Marilou Is Everywhere Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Greene County, Pennsylvania, and Coal and our BookBrowse Review of Marilou Is Everywhere.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. At the beginning, Marilou is Everywhere seems to fit the familiar trope of "girl goes missing in a small town," and yet it ultimately develops into something more unusual. How does the author turn this premise on its head? Is Jude the only one to go "missing" from her regular life? Think about the other female characters: Cindy, Cindy's mother, Bernadette. What about the male characters?
2. The novel is vividly set in rural Pennsylvania and highlights the poverty and neglect in this area. What, if anything, do you think the author means to say about life in small towns and rural communities throughout America? What does she suggest about the vulnerability of teenage girls and women in general here?
3. At the beginning of the novel the protagonist Cindy Stoat states, "I would kill or die, die or kill, to be anyone else" (2). What is Cindy giving up, in her quest to become someone else? Was there ever a point in your life when you felt similarly?

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