Cozy night
Under WaterBook club questions, food & host guide
Tara Menon
Picked by
TeaTime Book Club
TeaTime Book Club
A cozy book club night for Under Water by Tara Menon. Includes 8 spoiler-free discussion questions, food and drink pairings, a playlist, and a host guide, ready to print and share.
A small, close club that likes to read something tender, sit on a soft couch, and talk about their own lives as much as the book's
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A slim, immersive 2026 novel that pulls you under the surface of grief, memory, and the things families keep submerged. At 224 pages it is a single-weekend read that leaves people wanting to talk softly and at length.
Why it works for clubs
- Short enough that everyone actually finishes it, so no one sits out the conversation
- Water imagery runs through the whole book, giving the group a shared language for feelings that are hard to name
- It invites personal stories rather than hot takes, which suits a gentle, low-pressure room
- The quiet, interior style means readers notice very different moments, so comparing notes feels generous rather than competitive
Themes & mood
Browse all themes →Reading level
Moderate
Pages
224
Warm-up questions
- 1 Where did you do most of your reading of this one, and did you find yourself wanting a blanket, a bath, or a window with rain on it?
- 2 Was there a page early on where you felt the book pull you under and you knew you were in for the whole thing? What was happening on it?
Digging in
- 1 Water in this book can be shelter or threat depending on the moment. Which of those two did it feel like to you most of the time, and does that match your own relationship with being in water?
- 2 The novel spends a lot of its attention on things left unsaid inside a family. Was that comforting to read or quietly painful for you, and did it remind you of a silence in your own house growing up?
- 3 Menon lets small domestic details carry big feelings. Which tiny ordinary detail stayed with you after you closed the book, and why do you think that one stuck?
- 4 This is a book about what rises back up when you try to keep it down. What did reading it bring back up for you, even gently, that you had not thought about in a while?
Going deep
- 1 By the last stretch, the book asks whether surfacing is a relief or just a different kind of exposure. Which did it feel like for you as a reader, and what in your own life taught you that answer?
- 2 If you could sit with any one person in this novel for an hour, no advice given, just tea and company, who would you choose and what would you want them to feel by the end of that hour?
On the table
Big pot of creamy seafood chowder with buttered bread
Warm, briny, and coastal without being fussy. It carries the book's water setting straight into the room and lets people eat one-handed while they talk.
Slow-baked lemon and herb fish pie with mashed-potato top
The ultimate comfort-from-the-sea dish. Make it in the morning, bake it before people arrive, and the whole house smells like someone is taking care of you.
Warm cardamom and jaggery rice pudding, served in small bowls
A nod to Menon's South Indian roots and the book's soft, maternal undercurrent. Sweet, nurturing, and exactly right for the quiet second half of the night.
To sip
Honey ginger lemon toddy
No alcohol
Steeped in a pot on the stove and ladled out. Soothing, a little medicinal, perfect for a book about weathering something.
Spiced masala chai with extra milk
No alcohol
Warm, fragrant, and endlessly refillable. Keeps the conversation low and slow and nods to the author's background.
Hot buttered rum
The gentle indulgence of the night. Dark rum, butter, brown sugar, and hot water, the drink of people coming in from the cold and wet.
Hushed and watery: fingerpicked guitar, soft piano, reverb that sounds like a room with the rain outside. Keep it low enough to talk over.
Tap a track to play it. Full songs play when you're signed into Spotify.
Run of show
7:00
Door, slippers, first mug
Have the chai and toddy already hot on the stove. Hand everyone a drink before they take their coat off. No seating plan, let people sink where they land.
7:20
Chowder and bread, no agenda
Eat first, talk about the week. Do not open the book yet. The food is doing the work of settling everyone.
7:45
Warm-ups by the lamp
Dim the overheads, pass the two warm-up questions on cards. Let people answer in any order. Short answers are fine.
8:05
The theme stretch
Work through three or four of the theme questions. Let tangents run, this vibe rewards drift. Top up mugs as you go.
8:45
Rice pudding and the deep two
Serve dessert, then ask one or both deep questions. Dessert in hand makes hard questions easier to answer honestly.
9:15
Trivia, scorecards, soft landing
Light trivia to lift the mood, fill in scorecards together, hand out bookmarks, and let people leave whenever they are ready.
Host tips
- Say out loud at the start that nobody has to have finished, and nobody has to speak. This book makes people emotional, and permission to pass keeps the room honest.
- Keep one pot of something warm on the stove all night rather than a single served course. The refill trip is where the best side conversations happen.
- Have tissues on the table without announcing them. Someone will want one and will not want to ask.
You're invited
Come Get Warm, We Are Going Under
Bring your copy of Tara Menon's Under Water, your softest socks, and nothing else. There is chowder on the stove, chai in the pot, and a couch with your name on it.
Trivia
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1
Who wrote Under Water?Answer: Tara Menon.
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2
What year was Under Water published?Answer: 2026.
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3
Roughly how long is the novel?Answer: About 224 pages, a short novel you can finish in a weekend.
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4
The title Under Water is two words rather than one. What does splitting it suggest about the book's approach?Answer: It reads as a state of being (under water) rather than a single technical word, pointing to the novel's interest in submersion as a feeling rather than a setting.
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5
What kind of fiction is Under Water generally shelved as?Answer: Literary fiction, character-driven and interior rather than plot-driven.
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6
Is Under Water a long multi-generational saga or a compact novel?Answer: Compact. Its brevity is part of the effect, the whole thing works as one sustained mood.
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7
What is the dominant image system a reader notices from the title onward?Answer: Water: depth, surface, submersion, and what does or does not rise.
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8
Why is a 224-page literary novel considered an ideal book club pick?Answer: High completion rate. Everyone can finish, so the discussion includes the whole room.
Bookmarks
Cozy night
Soft depths
Hold your breath gently. The surface is still there.
Under Water
Cozy night
Tender hush
Some things only float up when the house goes quiet.
Under Water
Cozy night
Cozy reading
Warm mug, cold sea, one more chapter.
Under Water
Rate the book
Comfort factor
How much it moved me
Beauty of the writing
Wanted to keep reading
Would press into a friend's hands
One word for how this book left me:
The moment I want to reread:
Who in my life I am sending this to:
Print pack
- Warm-up and theme question cards, one per card, large type for lamplight
- Handwritten mug tags so nobody loses their chai
- Trivia half-sheets for the soft-landing round
- Scorecard slips with a pencil tucked in each
- The three bookmark lines on heavy cream card stock, one for each guest to take home
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