Death. The one-way ticket home. The big sleep. The final frontier. No matter what you call it, Amy's death is at the center of A Little Less Girl. The characters spend most of their time coming to terms with it or trying to figure out what really caused it. Jake has to learn to accept that he might have played a part in a suicide, Dani has to make some peace with the fact that her best friend is mysteriously gone, and everyone else has to wrestle with the idea that a bright, young girl took her own life… or did she? Without Amy's death, there's no mystery to solve.
Questions About Mortality
- Why can't Dani accept the idea that Amy committed suicide? Why is the rest of the town so eager to buy that explanation?
- Does it matter if Amy actually committed suicide or not? Does it change how you feel about her death if it was accidental?
- If Amy hadn't died, do you think she and Jake might have eventually gotten together? Why or why not? How does her death affect Jake's feelings about her?
- Why is Amy's death compared to Ryan Wilford's? What does this do for the theme of mortality in the book?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
Dani has such a hard time dealing with Amy's death because she blames herself for not being there for her best friend.
Amy is better understood in death than she was in life.