Download Ada`s Rules by Alice Randall Reading group discussion guide

Ada’s Rules by Alice Randall
Reading group discussion guide
These discussion questions are designed to enhance your group’s conversation about Ada’s
Rules: A Sexy Skinny Novel, Alice Randall’s story of a generous, smart fifty-year-old preacher’s
wife who spends long days caring for everyone but herself. Upon receiving an invitation to a
reunion signed with a wink by a college sweetheart, Ada resolves to lose weight by changing her
life according to a set of her own Rules—and, as a result, ends up improving her health, her
marriage, and the lives of her family and friends.
Questions for discussion of Ada’s Rules
1. What motivates people to make big changes? In the book, Ada initiates her program
thinking of Matt Mason and a reunion, but is he her true motivation?
2. Preach likes big women, big women run Ada’s church, and even her beloved sisters were
heavy. How has Ada’s social setting and her belief that “large” connotes “running
things,” taken along with other people’s expectations of her, affected her weight?
3. At the outset of the novel, it seems that Ada is estranged from her own body—has fallen
out of love with it. What does she do that helps her fall back in love with her body?
4. How does Ada change her public persona over the course of the novel? In what ways
does she go from proper “preacher’s wife” to being more outspoken and less concerned
with what others think?
5. Women—including Ada—often take on the role of caretaker at the expense of their own
health and happiness. How has being overworked been detrimental to Ada’s health?
6. How does Ada’s “healthing” campaign affect the rest of her community and family?
7. Matt Mason and Preach are about the same age, and they went to the same college. But
there’s a sense in the novel that Mason embraces a kind of “new black aesthetic” while
Preach embraces “old-school black values.” How does this affect each man’s sense of
what is beautiful in a woman?
8. In Chapter 9 Ada asks herself, “When am I going to stop thinking about this as an
exercise in deprivation, and start thinking about it as an exercise in filling myself up with
what is good for me and what I like? Probably the day I start losing weight.” Which of
Ada’s weight-loss Rules do you find the most appealing? Which is the most surprising?
9. There is a great deal of speculation about infidelity in the novel, with Ada wondering
about Preach’s possible cheating and flirting with the idea of cheating on Preach with
Matt Mason. Is infidelity a hidden concern in every marriage?
10. Ada coins the term blutter, which stands for black clutter—in bodies, bankbooks, and
houses. Ada herself is attracted to a kind of chaos of the body; Preach is attracted to
chaos in his financial records; Ada’s parents are attracted to chaos in the home. What
purposes does the chaos serve in the lives of these characters? How does the chaos get in
their way?
11. Ada Howard is a devoutly religious woman. What is the role of Ada’s faith in her
“healthing” plan?
12. Perhaps the saddest moment of the book is when the redheaded, bike-riding boy who has
provided Ada with spontaneous encouragement on her walks dies in a car accident. As a
reader, did you expect to care so much about a minor character? Did Ada expect to care
so much about a relative stranger?
13. At the center of Ada’s Rules is a love story about falling back in love with the one you’re
with. How does Preach change as a result of Ada’s following her Rules? Were you as
surprised and impressed by his sermon as Ada (and a large part of their congregation) is?
14. How important is it to follow all of the Rules? When taken together, what kind of mindset and lifestyle do the Rules engender? Would you try the Rules yourself as a weightloss technique?
15. Is the author of the book, Alice Randall, actually Ada? Does its having a semiautobiographical main character make you think about Ada’s Rules any differently?