Homebound
Cut along the dashed lines and pass the cards around the table.
Where did you do most of your reading of Homebound, and did the place you were in start to blur a little with the places in the book?
What is the first image from this book that comes back to you now, days later, without you trying?
The title promises a return. When you were reading, did going home feel like relief, like dread, or some tangled mix of both, and did that shift as the pages went on?
Was there a moment in Homebound where you felt genuinely looked after by the writing, like the book slowed down to be kind to you?
Portia Elan pays close attention to small domestic things. Which little detail of daily life in this book made you want to go do that exact thing in your own house?
This is a book about people who know each other too well. Who in your own life talks to you the way these people talk to each other, in shorthand and old grudges and love all at once?
By the last stretch of the book, had your idea of what home means quietly changed from what you assumed on page one? Try to describe the shift without giving away how we get there.
Homebound sits with things that do not get fully fixed. How did you feel carrying that, and was there any mercy in the book not tying everything off neatly?