What do you think of the book’s portrayal of these bonds? How does the crisis affect these relationships?Ĩ. The Dreamers includes many parent/child relationships. How would you describe her personality? How does she change over the course of the novel?ħ. One of the main characters is a college freshman named Mei. Why do you think Karen Thompson Walker chose to feature a large cast of characters instead of focusing on just one person’s experience? How did this choice affect your reading of the book? Did one character resonate with you more than the others?Ħ. Do you think her dreamed-of life is somehow real? Or just a delusion? What about Nathaniel’s extended dream of Henry?ĥ. Consider Rebecca, who dreams of an entire lifetime, including a son. Some of the sick dream of extraordinarily vivid alternate lives. How does The Dreamers differ from other books about disaster and dystopia? What does it have in common with those stories?Ĥ.

What do you think of Matthew’s character? Are his actions heroic or heartless? Selfless or self-aggrandizing? Or some combination? Is it ethical to privilege the lives of one’s loved ones over the lives of strangers?ģ. How do these possibilities play out in The Dreamers?Ģ. Our culture is dominated by two opposing narratives about how people respond to disasters: Some believe they bring out the worst in people, others that they bring out the best. A contagious disease, a quarantined town-the characters in The Dreamers are facing an extreme situation.

The dreamers karen walker