Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

Book Club Discussion Questions

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Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. "There he is: hiding in the basement and waiting for love. Upstairs is a cinema." How do the book's opening lines set the story? What do you make of the narrator?
2. What was your first impression of Old Second and Bao Mei's marriage? How does their relationship change over the course of the book?
3. "Eventually, his pain became so unspeakable it became boring. Dull as the gray on a city bird's down. Now it exists in a cluttered corner of his mind, one he rarely visits." Old Second has suppressed his feelings about the end of the Workers' Cinema. How do we see the impact of the trauma on the rest of his life? How does his reaction differ from the other characters'?
4. How does Hen Bao's ghost impact Bao Mei and the Workers' Cinema? What other supernatural signs appear throughout the book?
5. How does the destruction of the Workers' Cinema resonate across history? The narrator lists similar events around the world. How do they all tie together?
6. There is a tension between spoken words and unspoken truths throughout the book. How do Yan Hua's secrets haunt her, and how does she handle them differently from other characters?
7. When she first comes to America, Yan Hua is a "puppet wife." In the book, "This is the name given to Fuzhounese women whose families pay American Fuzhounese men for marriage papers, which later turn into immigration papers, which eventually become divorce papers." How does the term fit her character overall—or not?
8. How do the letters Kevin goes through at Unity Church impact the story? What do the letters mean for storytelling and memory in the book?
9. What does it mean for Yan Hua to do Bao Mei's nails? What do you make of their moments together?
10. Yan Hua says that she would never stay in a loveless marriage and would rather be alone, while Bao Mei tells her that loneliness is her biggest fear. Which woman do you agree with, if either? How does this contrast echo in the other marriages in the book?

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