'The Luminaries' Book Club Readalong Day 5!

Welcome back to the fifth day of our book club readalong for OwlCrate's November book, The Luminaries by Susan Dennard!

Just a reminder that this will be a SPOILER discussion for Chapters 25-30 of The Luminaries, so make sure you read are finished this section before continuing.

Discussion questions are listed below, and anyone who participates in the comments will be entered to win a free OwlCrate box! Don't forget, you can also post about the readalong on Instagram with the hashtag #OCTheLuminaries for another chance to win!

The story continues...

Chapter 25:
Jay takes Winnie to the place in the forest where he assures her the nightmares won’t go.

Chapter 26:
The trial begins, Winnie running through the dark forest trying to remember the directions to the clearing that Jay showed her, but in the dark she gets turned around. The mists rise, and she finds herself surrounded by vampira.

Chapter 27:
Using her knowledge of the compendium, Winnie uses her machete to slice at the knee of one of the vampira, and with luck impales another one. She runs towards the clearing, throwing a stun grenade behind her, and crosses over the stream. Jay seems to have been right, the vampira don’t follow. Up in a tree to wait out the night Winnie sees a beautiful ghost deer before eventually falling asleep.

Chapter 28:
Winnie wakes to the hoard of vampira trying, and some succeeding, to cross the stream after all. Not knowing what else to do, Winnie climbs as high as she can in the tree, which is when the Whisperer arrives. It decemates the vampira hoard and Winnie pulls the alarm which signals the hunters that she needs help. Before they arrive, the mists come back indicating morning has arrived and taking the nightmares with it, except the Whisperer remains.

No one will listen to Winnie about the Whisperer, refusing to hear about what she saw, but as they arrived to aid her after morning arrived they deem she passed the trial.

Chapter 29:
Once home and showered, Winnie again sneaks out in the rain. She needs to talk to Mario, but not finding him anywhere, she heads to the Friday estate instead to talk to Jay’s aunt Lizzy. She listens, and says she alert the Tuesdays about the Whisperer. Cold, tired, and soaking wet, Winnie has had enough. She confronts Lizzy and Jay for abandoning her family.

Chapter 30:
At home Winnie goes to the attic and looks through a box of her dad’s stuff. Just when she’s about to put it away she notices her birthday cards stashed at the bottom - her mom hadn’t been turning them over to the council after all. Inside the first card, and the only opened card, Winnie finds a code from her dad.

 Questions:

1. Why do you think the Whisperer can appear during the day?

2. Why do you think the council is so set against talking about it?

3. What sort of information do you think the code contained in Winnie’s birthday cards will lead to?

4. Jay mentioned he had "other stuff going on" when he stopped talking to Winnie and her family. What do you think that means?

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