51 pages • 1 hour read
Barbara O'NealWhen We Believed in Mermaids: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of sexual assault of a child, alcohol/drug use/addiction recovery, abortion, suicide ideation, parental neglect, and homicide.
How do Kit’s memories of their shared childhood differ from Josie’s? How do these differences highlight the way in which shared experiences had a different impact on each character?
What reason does Kit give for her parents’ neglect of her and her sister throughout their childhood? How does this characterize the parents? What commentary on the role of parents does the novel offer?
How does Kit initially respond to seeing her sister on the news report regarding the nightclub fire? Why did O’Neal choose to use two violent episodes to express Josie’s death and her reappearance in Kit’s life?
What is significant about Kit’s comments that she never travels and that she has always lived within a short distance of the hospital where she was born? How does this compare with the life her sister Josie lived, and how does Kit’s refusal to travel relate to her childhood trauma?
Mari refers to Josie as someone she killed. Why is it important to Mari that Josie disappear? How does Mari separate herself from the person Josie was? How does separating herself from Josie help Mari keep up the persona of “Mari” and continue to remain sober?
Why is Mari fascinated with Sapphire House, and how does her evaluation of the importance of this house underscore the importance of the house in Mari’s life?
Mari shares with Kit the truth about Josie’s sexual assault and her abortion after intimacy with Dylan soon after they reconnect. How does this illustrate the difference between a child dealing with an extreme trauma on her own and a well-adjusted adult dealing with the same trauma? What does this say about the differences between Mari and Josie?
Why does O’Neal choose not to reveal Dylan’s background to the reader? How does O’Neal imply that Kit and Josie’s mother knows more about Dylan than they do?
How does Javier compare to Mari’s husband Simon? How are Javier and Simon foils to Dylan along with Kit and Josie’s father?
How does the earthquake compare to the nightclub fire and the train bombing introduced early in the novel, and how do these events affect the characters?
