I love book clubs, and I get very excited when I hear two or more people are getting together to talk about my books! This page is meant to be a collection of resources and ideas to make it as easy as possible to talk your club into featuring my book. I am also willing to do virtual visits to bookclubs, time permitting! Please reach out to me on social media if this is something your club is interested in, and we’ll see if we can make it work.
Discussion questions for Apocalypse Parenting #1: Time to Play
What was the moment the book hooked you (or lost you)?
Have you ever read a litRPG book before, or was this your first? Do you have experience with roleplaying games or any other kinds of games? How do you think those experiences (or lack thereof) affected your enjoyment of the book?
If you were in Meghan’s place, would you have chosen the same abilities? What if you didn’t have to care for kids?
How would you fight monsters in a situation like hers? Did you think about what in your home could be turned into weapons and armor?
Do you think her children’s supernatural abilities and increased physical strength changed how Meghan had to approach parenting?
What was left unresolved in this book that you’d want to see developed further in a future book? Do you want to continue reading?
Should Meghan have been more selfish or less selfish? Why?
How did you feel about Pointy Turtle? Is she trustworthy? Knowing what you know now, would you create an Information Assistant?
How far do you think the Maffiyir is from our own reality shows and competitions? Does reading the books give us any similarity to the hypothetical audience watching Meghan?
How did you feel about the litRPG elements like Points and Abilities? Did they enhance the story or distract from it?
The story is told from Meghan’s perspective. Do you think she’s a reliable narrator? If you feel she’s sometimes unreliable, where do you think that shows up?
We see Meghan’s neighbors take many different approaches to the apocalypse. Which characters do you think had the best and worst reactions?
There’s still a lot of mystery around Novelty, but it’s clear by the end of Time to Play that it presents both additional risk and additional opportunity. How would you weigh the risk and the reward? Should Meghan try to accumulate Novelty in the future, or try to avoid it?
Activities and additional suggestions for Apocalypse Parenting #1: Time to Play
If you have a great suggestion or activity, please share it on socials and, with your permission, I’ll add it here!
One to start us off… If your book club does themed food, a great idea for book one is “Eat the perishables!” The first meal Meghan feeds her kids after the start of the apocalypse is ice cream, because it’s going to melt! For book one of this series, we recommend eating foods that won’t last without refrigeration. You can go as unhealthy as ice cream or as healthy as salads with this one.