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Have You Read Apples Never Fall? Consider These Unique Book Club Questions
Start reading Liane Moriarty’s popular novel Apples Never Fall, which is also now a new drama streaming on Peacock.
After a mother disappears, her family falls apart as her husband is the prime suspect and her children grapple with what might have happened to her. That's the premise of Peacock's new drama, Apples Never Fall, which is based on Liane Moriarty's bestselling novel.
Tennis coaches Stan (Sam Neill) and Joy (Annette Bening) Delaney raised four aspiring tennis players: Amy (Alison Brie), Troy (Jake Lacy), Brooke (Essie Randles), and Logan (Conor Merrigan-Turner), who disappointed their athletic parents by never going pro, which affected the children’s relationships with their parents. And just months before her disappearance, Joy and Stan welcomed a stranger into their home: Savannah (Georgia Flood), who claimed to be a domestic violence victim running away from her boyfriend in need of refuge.
As the police try to find Joy, as questions arose about the family’s bonds, Joy and Stan’s marriage, and even if the mysterious visitor played a role in Joy’s disappearance.
The series is based on the gripping, popular book, published in 2021. If you've read it for yourself, consider these Apples Never Fall book club questions and discussing with your friends! (It also works if you've only watched the series!).
Apples Never Fall Book Club Questions
1. The cover of Apples Never Fall is striking: four apples lined up on top of a tennis net. What do these apples symbolize? And how do apples play a recurring theme not only in the name of the novel, but the novel itself?
2. We know tennis was life for Joy and Stan, as they ran the prestigious Delaney Tennis Academy for years. How did their pressure to play tennis affect their children? Do you think there were lasting impacts into adulthood?
3. Much has been made of the couple’s decision to allow a complete stranger, Savannah, to not only enter their home, but live there for an extended period of time. Why do you think they made this choice? Were they trying to fulfill a desire or solve a problem?
4. What did you suspect happened when Joy disappeared? Why were the children so slow to react to her disappearance? Did you believe Stan was guilty?
5. What did you think of Joy and Stan’s marriage as more was revealed throughout the book? Did they belong together, or should they have separated?
6. Harry Haddad was a character who never actually appeared in the novel, yet had a huge impact on its characters. Talk about how he was important to each character in a different way.
7. Did Stan ever get over Harry quitting and not getting the chance to coach Harry as a pro tennis player? How might Stan's relationships and life have turned out differently if Harry hadn’t quit? Do you think he’ll ever get over Joy’s betrayal?
8. What did you think of the revelation of Savannah’s true identity? Did her experience as a child justify her behavior as an adult? Should the Delaneys have felt guilty for how they treated her? Was it their burden to take on for how Savannah’s life turned out?
9. Why did Joy end up going away with Savannah, even knowing her true identity? Were you satisfied with the answer of Joy’s disappearance?
10. Did Joy do enough to tell her family where she was going, or did she deliberately leave them in the dark? Do you think the family’s relationships will ever heal after her disappearance and return?
Watch Apples Never Fall streaming on Peacock now.
