Life Out of Order
Cut along the dashed lines and pass the cards around the table.
If you suddenly landed in another decade with nothing but one small object to steady you, the way Alba has her violin, what would you want in your hands?
Where did you do most of your reading of this one, and did the book start to feel like a certain time of day or a certain weather to you?
Alba is anchored by a tight circle of artists and activists. Who are the people who have anchored you through a stretch when your own life felt out of order?
The violin is Alba's constant companion. Was there a passage about music in this book that you felt in your body rather than just read, and what did it stir up?
Places like the Yellow House and the Museum of Lost Souls feel like refuges in the book. What is the real place you go to when you need to be gathered back together, and does it have that same quality?
Niffenegger writes about love that has to survive long absences. Did any moment here remind you of someone you only get in pieces, a long-distance friend, a parent, a person you have lost touch with?
Alba meets another traveler who already knows more than she does about where things are headed. Setting aside what actually happens, how did the idea of someone holding knowledge about your life sit with you emotionally, comforting, suffocating, or something harder to name?
By the last stretch of the book, what feeling were you carrying, and was it the feeling you expected when you started? Say it without naming what happens, just the weather it left in you.