EPBOT Readers discussion

This is the section for thoughts on Part 1. Some questions I'm making up, others pulling from a reading guide I found on VE Schwabb's official site. There's six parts naturally in the book

The book starts off in fragments, we see Addie running away from something, we see her modern life with the result of her curse, we see her as a young girl, to finally how she came to be running. How do you feel that set us up to view her bargain and her curse? How do you think it changes how we view it than if we had followed the story chronologically?

Living without a bank account or a phone or an address, Addie is reduced to pilfering and theft to quell her physical suffering. Is it a blessing or a curse that she only has to worry about momentary suffering, not survival? What new appreciation do you have for the ordinary things you count on to make it through difficult times?

Addie’s situation is transformed when she steps into The Last Word for the fi rst time. Discuss the role of the written word in her life. What does her taste in bookssay about her? What does it mean for her to be deprived of a lasting version of her
own life story?

At this point in the book, how do you feel Henry ties into the story? Why do we get his point of view, instead of Addie's? Why do you think he remembers her?

Any other thoughts on these sections?

I'm writing this after having finished the book, so my comments may not be strictly restricted to the sections being discussed.

I'm not convinced that the chronological back and forth served much of a purpose, other than exposition of the features and limits of her curse for the earlier sections. I wonder whether a straight chronology would have enabled us to discover these limits vividly alongside Addie, and whether the tedium of the constraints would have been more pronounced.

I humbly admit I am a pampered first world 21st Century chick who probably wouldn't fare well in her circumstances.

The written word preserves stories and identities, which is what she has traded in for freedom. Almost, but not quite. I loved the glimpses of her in art throughout the ages, as though no devil was powerful enough to entirely delete the memory of her touching other people's lives.

At this point, I was super curious to find out what was up with Henry. I was definitely thinking ahead, and it only struck me right before the big reveal.

I'm happy you voted for this pick. I quite enjoyed it!

So far I'm enjoying this more than I thought I would based on the blurb. It's well-written, sort of lyrical.

I think the fragmented chronology worked well for me, because I'm finding the modern parts of the story more interesting, so I might've gotten bored if it had proceeded chronologically from the beginning. The book starts with the quote about not calling on the ones who answer after dark, and then someone running as night is falling, so I feel like we have a solid basis for the backstory right there.

It did give me a lot of time to wonder about the technicalities. So she can't write her name, but can she write anything? Ah, no. OK, so she probably can't type, either. Can she dial a phone? Well, she can punch in a door code... She can leave clothes on the floor, so what would happen if she tried to spell something using socks?

It's interesting to consider pain and suffering without the normally concomitant danger. How much could you get used to hunger if you didn't actually have to eat? I'm not sure. It reminds me of my dad's reaction to mosquito bites: he gets a painful welt that goes away after a couple of hours. I get a bump that doesn't really hurt but itches for days and drives me to distraction. I once told him I wished mine were like his, and he looked pained and said, "They hurt." I still think I'd make the trade, but I can't actually know.

I don't know that the written word is particularly important to Addie - it's art that she really appreciates. She seems to have drawn more than she wrote as a child, and she likes art museums and movie theaters as an adult. I think books are just easy for her to pick up. I think she would tell her story in any medium available, and I'm still trying to work out whether some sort of found art assemblage would be possible.

At this point it seems like Henry is also in some way involved in the supernatural, although all we know right now is that people seem overly attentive to him. I don't know whether I'll be clever enough to figure it out eventually.

I just finished parts 1 & 2 last night. I'm tolerating the chronological shifts. For now I find myself more interested in the contemporary timeline.

She had the carved bird with her and I found its loss a bit anti-climatic and unsatisfying. But I agree that in the earlier timeline, art is more important than writing.

I'm not sure about Henry yet. He clearly will be important because he gets chapters from his POV. It was almost a relief for me when he remembered her. The final lines of part II seem to indicate he's also involved in the supernatural. Maybe he is someone like Addie that made a deal with the dark. I'm interested in seeing where this goes and the why.

I somehow completely missed this post when I read the book, so I'm going to jump in now even though I've been done for a while and already responded to later questions!

This was a story that I think might have worked better in chronological order - I think part of why I got a bit bored with it was all of the seemingly random jumping back and forth. I like time skips when they're related to some storytelling purpose (what ended up happening to a person/object, the backstory of current events, etc.) - but that didn't seem to be the case here. I would have been much more interested in following Addie as she figured out how to work around the limitations of the curse.

I love Rebecca's thought about spelling things out with socks - for me, that was the kind of thing this book was missing. The terms of the curse are super vague, so figuring out what is allowed and not allowed should have been an interesting process. I did appreciate that the story dealt with the difficult parts of being rootless and the morals of stealing rather than the usual focus on being able to have the use of expensive things at will. But I also feel like with all of the time she had, Addie would have figured out more loopholes. At face value, the way it's presented in the book, it seems scary and frustrating - but there would also be some element of enjoying the challenge of working within the curse's guidelines. Not that I'm planning to abandon my everyday life for couch surfing anytime in the near future, but that's why we read about other people doing these things!

I was also a bit surprised that there wasn't more emphasis on how learning to read changed things for Addie. The bookstore was a cute opportunity to work in mentions of other books dealing with individuals outside of time, but other than that it didn't really do much that couldn't have been done with Henry working in a gallery, a clothing store, a coffee shop, etc.

I initially thought that Henry was Luc in human form trying a different kind of temptation, or perhaps a different supernatural entity attempting to infringe on Luc's territory. It was pretty clear from the first introduction that there was some aspect of Henry that was going to intersect with the curse.

now that i've finished reading this...

having read (and written!) my share of books that jump all over the place in time, i felt right at home reading this. at first i had to flip back and forth to see how much time was passing, but after a while i found i didn't have to do that very often.

Megan said: I initially thought that Henry was Luc in human form trying a different kind of temptation
this is exactly what i thought as well!!!