R
EADING
G
ROUP
Q
UESTIONS
AND
T
OPICS FOR
D
ISCUSSION
1. Have you ever considered yourself to be part of a minority group? How so?
2. Does Lola indulge in too much self-pity, or is her self-protective nature a believable result of her upbringing?
3. Do you think Paul’s politics influenced his decision to begin a relationship with Lola?
4. Lola and Paul’s relationship seems hopeful at first, though by the story’s end it’s unclear whether they will be able to rekindle it. Do you think they have a chance?
5. How much do you blame Ally for his teenage experiences with Lola? How much do you blame Lola for how their relationship ends?
6. Lola’s mother is never seen in the book, but it’s clear she has little idea how to cope with her non-lyco daughter. Have you had an issue with your mother that has kept you further apart than you’d like?
7. How would you relate to a daughter like Lola?
8. Lola’s sister, Becca, is a much more sympathetic character than their mother seems to be, but she pushes Lola away in her time of greatest need. Was Becca right to turn away her sister in favor of protecting her child?
9. The “beast within” is a concept that has led to a number of interesting movies, from
The Wolf Man,
starring Lon Chaney, to John Landis’s
An American Werewolf in London.
Many of these films portray the werewolf as a tragic hero.
Benighted
takes quite a different point of view. How would moviegoers react to a film version?
*
10. What kind of story would a male author have told about this world?
11. Lola experiences her society as very badly run. Could it be managed better? How would you organize such a society?
12. Where do you stand on Parkinson’s experiments? Do you think he makes any good points?
13. Which character do you identify with most, and why?
FOOTNOTES
*Note: Warner Bros. recently bought the film rights to
Benighted.
Return to text.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K
IT
W
HITFIELD
lives in London;
Benighted
is her first novel. She has trained in her time as a masseur and a chef, and has worked as a website editor, quote hunter, toy-shop clerk, and publisher. She spends most of her free time writing, reading, or gazing at the animals in London Zoo.
Benighted
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by Kit Whitfield
Reading group guide copyright © 2006 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Published in Great Britain as
Bareback
by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of the Random House Group Limited, London.
D
EL
R
EY
is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-49550-1
v3.0