Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Club Discussion Questions for Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Remarkable Creatures

by Tracy Chevalier
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (10):
  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 5, 2010, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2010, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About this Book

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

In a book club? Subscribe to our Book Club Newsletter!

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

  1. The first sentence of the novel is, “Lightning has struck me all my life.” What did you expect after reading that? What does Mary mean?

  2. What attracts Mary to fossil hunting? How is it different from Elizabeth’s motivation?

  3. How would you characterize the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth—mother/daughter, sisters, or something else?

  4. On page 39 Elizabeth says, “After little more than a year in Lyme I’d come to appreciate the freedom a spinster with no male relatives about could have there.” Why is that? What did “freedom” mean for a woman of the time? Who had more freedom—Elizabeth or Mary?

  5. What role does religion play in Elizabeth’s life? In Mary’s?

  6. How does the notion of “God’s intention” affect their fossil-hunting?

  7. Why do you think that in the novel, the women are fossil hunters, while the men are fossil collectors? What point is Chevalier trying to make?

  8. At different points in the novel, both Mary and Elizabeth have reason to think that they, themselves, might become fossils. What did each woman mean by that?

  9. How does Colonel Birch come between the two women? What are his motives? In the end, do you consider him a decent man?

  10. After Birch’s auction, on page 203, Elizabeth cries, “Not for Mary, but for myself.” Why?

  11. Which woman needs the other more? Why?

  12. Why does Elizabeth go to London? What does she hope to achieve?

  13. Regarding her time on the Unity, Elizabeth says, “I did not expect it, but I had never been so happy.” (page 250) Why does she feel that way?

  14. After Mary agrees to sell a specimen to Cuvier, Mam accuses her of becoming a collector, no longer a hunter. What does she mean by that? Is she right?

  15. Upon Elizabeth’s return from London, Mary says she “was like a fossil that’s been cleaned and set so everyone can see what it is.” (page 298) What happened to change her?

  16. What was your response to the ending?

  17. Have you read any of Tracy Chevalier’s other novels? What similarities and differences do you see?

    Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Plume. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book:
  Mary Anning's Fossils

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.