Book Club – SHOT

If you’d like to discuss Shot with your book club, here is a series of questions to guide your discussion.

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1. Which person’s story in Shot do you identify with most closely? What about it—and about you—leads you to feel this way?
2. Which story did you find most emotionally difficult to read? What about that story made it so?
3. Do you have any firsthand experience with gun violence or a mass shooting? If so, how has it affected you? If not, how have you been affected by what you have read or heard about instances of gun violence?
4. Pick one story and provide an alternative ending. At what point do you have to make a change in the story to get an outcome you would prefer? What does this exercise tell you about what is necessary to end gun violence?
5. If you were Fuji, would you have responded the way he did in the instant he saw TJ holding a gun? If not, what would you have done?
6. Ginger decided not to attend a rally due to her fear of a shooting; Owen avoided movie theaters for a similar reason. Have mass shootings influenced where you (and/or family members) go? If so, how do you handle that?
7. Rob comments on the epidemic of hate and asks why humans have so much hate. What would you say to him about that? How do you understand the relationship between hate and gun violence?
8. Do you own or plan to purchase a gun? Why or why not?
9. Which is more important to you—assuming you can’t say “both” and must choose one: protecting the rights of gun owners or preventing deaths from gun violence? Why?
10. What three things would you be willing to commit to doing toward the goal of reducing gun violence?
11. Zoe doesn’t want to participate in active shooter drills at school. If you were her parent, what would you say to her?
12. At the end of the book, we don’t know exactly what Zoe will do with her friends. What would you advise them to do? How would you assess their chances for success?