Still Beating

Discussion Questions

1. The novel opens with Jessica’s heart failing on an operating table and ends with that same heart failing again in Savannah’s chest. How did that framing shape the way you read everything in between?
2. Savannah narrates her own chapters in first person, while Paul, Diane, and Claire are written in third. How did being placed inside Savannah’s head affect your sympathy for her? Did you ever catch yourself rooting for her, and how did that feel?
3. Savannah believes Jessica’s heart is leading her to Paul, and by the end, she believes Jessica is taking it back. Do you think the book invites us to entertain the idea of something supernatural about the heart, or is it entirely psychological? Did the ambiguity work for you?
4. Jessica writes, “Some pieces are too sharp, trying to hold them together only leaves you bleeding.” How does that line work as a warning, and how does it apply to both Savannah and Paul?
5. Paul’s late wife named his “rescue reflex,” the part of him that cannot leave anyone in pain. Is that a virtue, a weakness, or both? Where is the line between compassion and self-destruction?
6. Much of Savannah’s appeal is a performance assembled from Jessica’s journals and social media. On the guardrail at Route 54, she is honest by accident and Paul responds to the real her. What is the book saying about being loved for who you actually are?
7. The novel reveals Savannah’s history with James and Michael long before Paul. Did learning her past change how you judged her? Is she a villain, a victim, or something the book refuses to let us label?
8. Savannah writes the word “Exploitable” in her notes on Paul, feels a flicker of shame, and then doesn’t. Did her self-awareness make her more sympathetic, or more chilling?
9. Diane describes grief as something that makes Paul “permeable.” How does the novel portray grief as a kind of vulnerability, and did Paul’s choices feel believable to you?
10. Paul carries hidden guilt about the morning Jessica died. How does that private guilt make him easier for Savannah to reach? Do you think he bears any real responsibility?
11. Diane and Marcus are the two people who sense something is wrong. What does the book suggest about the role of outside observers, and about how isolation is used as a weapon?
12. Diane believes a forged email from her brother and steps back. How did you feel about the guilt she carries for that? Could she realistically have acted sooner?
13. Claire is, in many ways, collateral damage. How did her storyline land for you? Was her decision to leave understandable, even knowing it left Paul alone with Savannah?
14. Savannah systematically erases Jessica from the house: the clothes, the photographs, the journals, the rings. Which erasure affected you most, and what do you think she was really trying to destroy?
15. At the climax, Paul hesitates for ten or fifteen seconds before performing CPR on the dying Savannah. Did he do the right thing? Would you have hesitated? Does the medical examiner’s verdict, that the outcome was unlikely to change, let him off the hook?
16. In the end, Paul feels pity for Savannah, “for the girl who sat in the rain and learned that nobody was coming.” Were you able to feel that pity? Do you think we should?
17. Was Savannah born unlovable, or made that way? How much weight does the novel place on her childhood, her absent father, and her mother?
18. The story repeatedly blurs care with control, and kindness with surveillance. Where have you seen those lines blur in real life, even in small ways?
19. Consider the title, Still Beating. How many meanings can you find in it by the time you finish the book?
20. The final image is Paul in a coffee shop, talking easily with a stranger and not flinching. Did the ending feel like healing, like a warning, or like both? What do you imagine for him after the last page?