Book Club Discussion Guide for Untethered
Note: These questions contain spoilers.
- Untethered begins with the untimely death of Laura’s oldest brother, Lawrence, an event which sets her on a journey to find stability and hope. Have you or someone close to you ever experienced a devastating loss? Did you have a safe place to talk about your grief? If not, what would it look like to create a safe space? Discuss our culture’s discomfort with those who are grieving.
- After her brother, Lawrence, dies, Laura embraces her Christian faith, something that gives her life purpose and meaning. If you are a person of faith, how has it helped you through an especially difficult time? In what way?
- Laura reflects on the first trip she made with her family to North Carolina’s Outer Banks as a young girl. “Something about this place had slipped into my heart. It would remain there for the rest of my life.” Is there a certain place (or time) that lives on in your heart? Share your thoughts.
- Laura moves to the beach to live with her brother the summer after her freshman year of college. She describes that experience: “My life had been small and sheltered. Now it felt expansive. I was living on my own. I’d made new friends, and I was testing my independence. For the first time, I felt free.” Did you feel this way when you first left home? How old were you and what was it like?
- When she is just nineteen, Laura drops out of college and sets off for New York with $600 to pursue her dream of becoming a cover girl. After a tumultuous year of waiting tables, failed relationships, and navigating the cutthroat world of modeling, she returns home, defeated. Have you ever taken a big risk to follow a dream? How did it work out?
- The first part of Laura’s memoir is set in the 1970s. What era did you grow up in? What were some of your favorite songs? If you grew up in the 70s, what songs from Untethered do you remember? Were any of them favorites? (click here for the Untethered playlist on Spotify).
- The day Laura goes to help her brother, Horace, close up their childhood home, the place where her parents lived for 30 years, she says, “grief enveloped me like a blanket still damp from the dryer.” Has grief ever felt that way to you? How would you describe your own experience with grief?
- Comfort food is a thread throughout Untethered. When Laura moves home to recover from a life-threatening surgery, she talks about the food her mother makes for her. “I’d come to understand that every dish she prepared had one common ingredient: love.” What comfort foods do you remember from childhood? What made them so special? What, if any, comfort foods do you still enjoy?
- Laura talks about the shame of going through a divorce in the early 1980s. Have you ever been through a divorce? Did you struggle with shame? If so, what (or who) helped you work through it? What advice would you give to someone who might be struggling with shame?
- Laura writes about how she got through the death of her father by “doing the next thing.” “Whenever I’d come face-to-face with that gnawing sense of loss, I’d stop. Then I’d go through the motions of doing the next thing. It became my salvation in the weeks and months that followed.” Has “doing the next thing” ever helped you get through a difficult time? Share your experience.
