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Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions

She Is Me

1. What motivates Greta's and Elizabeth's affairs -- love or lust? How do their lives mirror Madame Bovary's?

2. Lotte, Greta, and Elizabeth are all keeping secrets from one another. Why? Is it because what the others don't know can't hurt them,or is it because they are unwilling to admit their desires to themselves, let alone to one another?

3. Lotte's illness results in her disfigurement. How does her physical appearance affect her attitude? Do Lotte's fond memories of her vaudeville days keep her from facing the predicaments she and her family currently confront, or are they the example on which she feels Greta and Elizabeth should model their own lives?

4. Where do the men fit into the lives of the mothers and daughters in She Is Me? Are Tony and Brett pushovers, or are they the backbone of their respective relationships?

5. What does Daisy Piperno offer Greta that Tony can't? Does Greta's love for Tony diminish when she discovers what she believes is true love with Daisy,or does Greta's love for Tony just become something different from what it was?

6. What do you make of Lotte and Kuogi's relationship? How is her friendship with him a source of strength or solace?

7. What keeps Elizabeth from marrying Brett? How would marriage change their relationship? Does Harry keep them together or put a wall between them?

8. How do the relationships between Greta, Lotte, and Elizabeth resemble relationships you have with your mother or sister? How are the relationships depicted in the novel different from yours?

9. Why is Volfmann so appealing to Elizabeth? What does her attraction to him reveal about her personality? How does it reflect on her relationship with Brett?

10. She Is Me discusses illness and adultery very frankly, but with an irrepressible sense of humor. Are most such crises inherently funny in some way?

She Is Me
by Cathleen Schine

  • Publication Date: September 15, 2004
  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Back Bay Books
  • ISBN-10: 0316159425
  • ISBN-13: 9780316159425