This reading group guide for THEY ALL FALL IN LOVE AT THE END includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Cat St. Clair is a twentysomething creative writing MFA student in DC who is just trying to navigate the messiness of her twenties amongst a looming presidential election, political tensions locally and overseas, and her parents’ crumbling marriage. When she asks her long-term boyfriend to open their relationship, she hopes this will provide her with the freedom she craves. She can now date whoever she wants, except for the one off-limits person she wants most of all—her boyfriend’s best friend, Tristan . . . and his new girlfriend. Even though she knows it will end in disaster, she follows her heart and pursues them all anyway, as she grapples with what it means to be a young Black woman and a writer in today’s political climate, who is constantly faced with choices that force her to confront what and whom she truly wants.

Discussion Questions

When Tristan asks Cat and Jay how their open relationship is going, Cat responds immediately with “Great!!!” (page 8). Jay later brings up this incident again (page 130), saying she wouldn’t let him respond. Why do you think Cat responded in this way? What does it say about their relationship?

Several scenes throughout the novel are written in the format of a play (pages 95, 133, 155, and 218). Why do you think those particular scenes are written in this way? How does that format serve those scenes?

Blassingame cleverly uses a meta “story within a story” structure, as Cat writes about her own situation the novel she’s writing for class. What does this story within a story allow the author to do? Why is it useful, and how does it change our perception of the story?

What do you think is the significance of Janine’s character? How does she serve Cat’s character development?

On page 50, Tristan tells Cat that his philosophy PhD dissertation is about how agency isn’t an individual issue, that your decisions are made within a system. On page 51, Cat tells Tristan about the book she’s reading, Art Monsters, about people who put their art over everything else. Discuss these two themes within the context of the book.

What do you think the tree that Cat buys to support Anwar’s family symbolizes? Why do you think she names it after her father?

When Milken tells Cat to pursue writing the story about her parents instead of the one about the “small details of her life.” Cat responds, “But the personal is always political, right?” (page 117). What do you think—can the personal and the political be separated, or does one always inform the other?

After they argue, Tristan tells Cat, “But you’re so much more than a relationship paradigm” (page 240). Do you agree with Tristan? Are we defined by our desires and labels? Or do you think he is missing the point—that being nonmonogamous is so much more than a relationship paradigm to Cat?

Why is Dorinda’s decision to move out so significant? In what ways does it reflect Cat’s decisions?

On page 271, Cat says, “I wanted the choice of not having to choose.” How does that reflect the themes of the book? Do we ever get to have that choice in life?

After reading an essay in the Black craft anthology, Cat has a realization about her writing and writes down the word “FORM” (page 285). She later realizes that “form” is also a verb (page 357). Discuss the two realizations she is having about her writing. What do they mean? Why do you think form is an important theme in the novel?

On page 298, Cat decides to be monogamous with Jay. What do you think led her to that decision in that moment?

What do you make of the way Blassingame left the friendship between Cat and Milan?

When Nia finally reveals her portrait of Cat to her, Cat thinks it looks “dishonest” (page 284). Later, Nia reveals the new version of the portrait as Cat as a silhouette against a landscape (page 363). What do you think this new version means? With the knowledge that the scene in Nia’s gallery ten years later might just be happening in Cat’s novel, what do you think the portrait says about how Cat perceives herself?

What do you make of the final chapter? Do you agree with Janine, or did you agree with Cat’s reasoning for the original ending of her book?

Enhance Your Book Club

Read a book or watch a movie with a love triangle (or rectangle). In what ways is it similar to the love rectangle in this book? In what ways does this book subvert the classic love triangle narrative?

The lock-in towards the end of the novel is in many ways similar to the encampment at Columbia University in 2024 and at other schools arounds the country. Has the account of Cat’s experience affected your perspective of these real-life protests? Why or why not?

The rise of polyamory and “ethical nonmonogamy” has become a hot-button topic recently. Read the Modern Love article “I Was Content with Monogamy. I Shouldn’t Have Been.” Then read Haili’s Modern Love essay “My Choice Isn’t Marriage or Loneliness.” Why do you think there has been such a rise in the discussion of polyamory in recent years? How is Haili’s perspective similar to or different from the other writer’s?