Questions for book clubs

Arriving (prologue through chapter 4, spoiler-free)

1. The prologue shows what happens at the circus before Feo ever arrives. How did knowing this change the way you read the first chapters: more suspense, more pity, more suspicion?
2. Feo’s family loves him and is afraid of him. How does chapter 1 show this without anyone saying it? Think of the mirror cabinet, the glass eye above the door, and Fia’s question, “Where are you going?”
3. Winters greets Feo with the words “I have been waiting for you ever since.” What makes that line comforting, and what makes it unsettling?
4. At the circus, no one asks Feo about his life before. The book’s epigraph reads: “No one asks you who you are. That is not politeness.” What might it be instead?
5. After the show, Rian says: “Two hundred people, and every one of them thinks we’re dressed up as a circus.” Why is a circus, of all places, such a good hiding place for people who are different?