READERS GUIDE

In Conversation with Lauren Kate
 
1.        In your own words, tell us what The Spirit of Love is about.
This is a crazy book to describe! I’ll try: Fenny and Jude have something remarkable in common: they’ve both had a near-death experience. Where Fenny’s NDE left her passionately devoted to celebrating life and everything she wants to get out of it, Jude’s NDE broke him—physically and spiritually. It’s a rom-com ghost story! After his accident there’s a part of Jude that lives in a state of arrested development on Catalina Island: carefree, innocent, and wild. (Fenny meets him at the start of the book and they have a hot weekend fling.) Then there’s the part of Jude that recovered from the accident, grew up, and lives very cautiously. (Fenny meets him when he steals the TV directing job she’s been working toward for a decade.) So there’s a version of Jude that Fenny hates, and a version of Jude that Fenny lusts for—and the story is about how falling in love with both of them is the only way to bridge this gap and the only way to piece Jude back together again as one whole, perfect (for Fenny) man. 
 
2.        Which was your favorite scene to write, and why?
 
I loved writing the book’s final scene. It takes place in the cabin on Catalina, where Fenny experienced an otherworldly romantic fling at the start of the book. At the end, she’s there with a different man and she has to tell him something unbelievable. And only because he’s so deeply in love with her is he able to believe what she says. I found it glorious to write about how love makes the impossible possible, the unfathomable completely real. 
 
3.        Why did you choose to set this story in Los Angeles and Catalina Island?
LA is my home, and I love it for a thousand reasons, but I love it most for its ethereal natural beauty, which I got to celebrate in this book. Because The Spirit of Love is a companion book to What’s in a Kiss?, and because Fenny works in the TV industry, I always knew it would take place in LA, but more specifically, Fenny lives in one of the most unique parts of LA, the Venice canals, which is a twelve-acre neighborhood with actual canals for streets. Everyone’s front yard has a dock and a rowboat or giant inflatable flamingo. And Catalina is LA’s most hidden gem—it’s a weekend getaway that feels like you’ve traveled to a Mediterranean island. I escape there at least once a summer.
 
4.        How was writing The Spirit of Love similar to or different from What’s in a Kiss?
Both books have speculative elements that ask similar questions. In What’s in a Kiss?, the alternate reality timeline forces Olivia to confront the choices she’s made and the life she wants to be living. In The Spirit of Love, the ghost story/near-death-experience element asks Fenny and Jude to evaluate what they’re here to do in this life and how to make the most of it. Both stories require immense vulnerability from their protagonists, while making sure that everyone laughs at the insanity of it all.
 
5.        Were Fenny, Sam, and Jude inspired by real people? If so, who, and if not, how did you come to their characters?
 
The first scene I wrote of Fenny was in What’s in a Kiss?, when she’s helping her new friend Olivia navigate a crisis. When she came into being in this scene, Fenny was inspired by a friend of mine who is a TV actor and writer and gives excellent advice. Jude is based on another friend, a slightly neurotic film director. Sam isn’t inspired by anyone in particular, but he’s the opposite of Jude, so it was fun to navigate two male characters with so much in common but who make completely different choices given all the same opportunities.
 
6.        Who was your favorite character to write, and why?
Fenny, of course. She was a really fun character to test, and she always rose to the occasion with openheartedness and humor.
 
7.        What inspired Fenny’s career in TV, as well as her aspirations to direct?
Mostly, Fenny’s career flowed out of her character in What’s in a Kiss? In that book, she’s the writer Olivia can confide in when she has no idea what she’s doing acting as a series regular in the TV show Zombie Hospital. In The Spirit of Love, when Fenny takes the main character role, I wanted to look at her aspirations beyond that phase of her career. I’ve long been a huge Greta Gerwig fan, and I was writing The Spirit of Love when Barbie came out, thinking about how deeply that film touched so many people and how even still, few female directors are given opportunities like that in Hollywood. So I gave Fenny the dream of directing, but I knew her path there couldn’t be easy. It was fun to throw a Jude-shaped wrench in her life and to satirize some of the misogyny my friends and I have experienced in our professional lives as creatives.
 
8.        If you could pick celebrities to play Fenny, Sam, and Jude in a movie adaptation of The Spirit of Love, who would they be?
It’d be fun to have two brothers play Sam and Jude—maybe Alex and Nat Wolff. And Haley Lu Richardson would make an adorable Fenny.
 
9.        What inspired you to write The Spirit of Love?
Recently, my oldest friend opened up to me about her near-death experience. It had taken her about ten years to process and integrate the trauma of it enough to be able to articulate what had happened. We’ve been best friends for forty years, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around that ten-year period when we were still incredibly close but she couldn’t even tell me about this wild and massive experience. Among the many incredible things she finally told me was that there’s a version of her before the NDE and a completely different version of her after the NDE. I started thinking about a character for whom this might be literal: a character who actually got split in two after a near-death experience and needed to find the love that would knit him back together.
 
10.   What would you like readers to take away from The Spirit of Love?
I hope they read it on vacation somewhere beautiful and tranquil like Catalina Island while sipping something fruity. I hope they close the book feeling that life is precious and love is the most powerful force there is.
 
 
Discussion Questions
 
1.        What was your favorite scene, and why?
2.        If you were Fenny, would you be more drawn to Jude or Sam? Why do you think that is?
3.        What would be your perfect meet-cute with a potential romantic interest? Were you able to carry out this dream in real life, and if so, was it everything you expected?
4.        A big goal for Fenny was to secure her spot as director, which is thwarted when she meets Jude. What are your goals in life, and how would react if someone got in your way?
5.        Who was your favorite character, and why?
6.        Fenny meets Sam adventuring on her own on Catalina Island. Have you been on any solo adventures? If so, what kinds of interesting people did you meet?
7.        Do you think you’d be a viewer of Zombie Hospital? Why or why not?
8.        In what ways do you think perception of reality differs for Sam and Jude?
9.        Were you surprised by Sam and Jude’s true identities? Why or why not?
10.   How did you feel about the ending? Were you expecting Fenny to choose that path?