READERS GUIDE

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. Consider Yourself Kissed is a literary love story that takes place over ten years in the life of one woman as she tries to build a family without losing her sense of self. What are the tensions that Coralie faces between her personal needs and desires and those of hergrowing family?

2. Coralie and Adam have a whirlwind courtship involving lively, witty banter. How does humor connect them? How does author Jessica Stanley use humor in the narrative voice, and how did this inform your reading experience?

3. Discuss the theme of motherhood in the novel. How are Coralie’s hopes for motherhood born out of her own childhood and experience of being mothered? How does being a stepmother to Zora change or inform her interest in mothering?

4. Back home in her native Australia, Coralie’s mother, Judith, says to her, “Easy to be lovey-dovey about someone else’s child. Wait till you have one of your own.” This is certainly an unkind thing to say about Coralie’s love for her stepdaughter, Zora, but what else does it reveal? Do you think Judith feels any regret about motherhood? Is Coralie able—or willing—to understand these regrets?

5. Expectations of femininity feature prominently in the book. Coralie, for example, sometimes resents that she’s expected to be Zora’s default caretaker when Adam is busy. Is motherhood itself a sort of “expectation” of womanhood? What do you think Coralie believes about this? Do her views change over the course of the book?

6. Outside of Adam and Coralie, there are a number of other parental figures in the novel, including grandmothers Anne and Sally, as well as Marina and her partner, Tom. How would you describe the caretaking style of each of them? What do you think the children get from these differing styles of parenting?

7. Discuss the significance of the title, Consider Yourself Kissed. The phrase originates in a novel that both Coralie and Adam have read, in which a “bad boy” uses this phrase when signing letters to his girlfriend; later in that novel, the bad boy has his girlfriend committed to an asylum. Tellingly, Coralie and Adam take up the phrase in their own intimate banter. Is there any ambivalence in this phrase? Does it tell you anything about Coralie’s own experience in her newfound family?

8. Discuss Coralie’s relationship with her younger brother, Daniel. At one point, she says she hardly remembers her childhood before he was born; Daniel seems to be the one member of Coralie’s original family with whom she’s genuinely close. How do they show up for each other?

9. What is stopping Coralie from writing her book? Do you think she has a right to want to write? Do you feel frustrated that she’s not managing to get it together, or does it strike a chord with you about your own dreams put aside in the course of daily life struggles?

10. Coralie is obviously a big reader. Did you discover any new authors by reading Consider Yourself Kissed, and what books do you think this one is in conversation with? Can you tell Coralie is a reader by how she thinks?

11. Consider Yourself Kissed takes place over ten years, the period of Coralie’s thirties. What stays constant about her over time, and what changes? How does the outside world affect her internal world? What impact has the last decade had on all of us as individuals, and as a society?