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Hachette Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. Leaving the orphanage forces Ren to become complicit with Tom and Benjamin, and he is drawn into their world of crime and deception. Some of the crimes they commit are truly shocking. To what extent can you retain your sympathy with Ren as he is caught up in this activity?
  2. A central theme of the novel is belonging, being part of a family, something Ren longs for in his orphanage days. Many of us spend our lives trying to break free of our families yet to have no family at all, or knowledge of your parents, can have a devastating effect on a person. What would it be like to have no family and no knowledge of your family history?
  3. THE GOOD THIEF has been described as 'gothic'. What elements combine to create this atmosphere, and what does this atmosphere add to the novel?
  4. In some ways, THE GOOD THIEF is quite an old-fashioned story; Hannah Tinti’s winding plot and roguish characters have been compared to those of Dickens and Mark Twain. Yet Ren is a character to whom a contemporary readership can easily relate. What is it about the character and the story that makes him so appealing to a modern reader?

Current Reading Group Titles

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  10. Remembering The Bones by Frances Itani
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