Ada’s Rules: 3rd set of book club questions – Soul Food and Old Lovers

Hey BWLW Fam, 

Here is our third set of bookclub questions for Ada’s Rules.  This book is the BOMB!  I hope you feel the same way.  Give your answers in the comment box.  Let’s discuss!

Soul Food. Ada loves food in general and soul food in particular. Over the course of the novel, she becomes a food culture revolutionary.

• What are some of the changes she makes in her own eating to affect change?
• What are some of the changes she makes in her community to affect change?
• What is the George Washington Carver diet?
• Ada’s primary exercise is walking in her neighborhood. How does her new habit—a daily walk–influence her community? How does it influence the way she and her daughters celebrate birthdays? How does it allow her to make new friends?
• Does Ada get too small?

About Matt Mason: Over the course of the novel, Ada contemplates an affair with her old college beau ,Matt Mason.

• Did that shock you? Why?
• Do you think Ada ever really intended to sleep with Matt Mason or do you think she only dreamed about it to motivate herself to change?
• 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 effect each man’s sense of what is beautiful in a woman?
• Have you ever been inspired by a fantasy to undertake action in real life? For example, have you ever imagined yourself on stage at Carnegie Hall to get yourself to practice the piano?