I finally finished reading The Ascended! Let's open up the discussion here (spoiler-free!) and dive into the book club questions:

1. The book introduces a unique world and set of rules—what were your first impressions of the setting, and how quickly did you feel immersed in it?

2. Which character did you find most compelling early on, and what drew you to them?

3. Themes of power and transformation seem important—how do you interpret the idea of “ascension” based on the opening portions of the book?

4. How does the narrative voice (including perspective and tone) influence your alignment with certain ideas or characters? Do you sense any intentional bias or unreliability?

5. In what ways does the book engage with questions of identity and self-determination? After finishing the story, did those themes evolve in the way you expected?

Wow, so I probably should have checked the page count of The Ascended because it's over 700 pages long! The past couple of weeks have been a bit nightmare-ish because both babies got sick with a cold and then my husband and I caught said cold. I lost my voice on Saturday and I'm just now starting to recover but taking care of sick kiddos when you're also sick? iykyk

I digress. To be fully transparent, I don't think I've ever finished reading a book that's over 400 pages long in a single month. Books that are around 350 pages? No problem. With that being said, I'm going to extend our Book Club pick from February (which is The Ascended) into the month of March. That'll give me enough time to finish it and gather my thoughts to discuss with you all! I'm currently 50% of the way through, which (shocker) is equivalent to around 350 pages anyways. I'll have to keep that in mind for our future Book Club picks!