Description: 1. How does the lack of punctuation affect your reading experience? 2. Fish are repeatedly featured in the book whether its Philip's description of Joshua Harper's "fish eyes", Uncle Alan's love of fishing or Philip's pet guppies and angel fish. Why do you think the fish are so important to the story? 3. Make up features heavily in the descriptions of Philip's mum Carol. What is she trying to cover up? Or is it just her protection against the world? 4. Mrs Fell explains to Philip that "you must be able to separate the things that are real from the things that are not real" (p.55). How easy is this to do in the novel? 5. "You can listen to ghosts or you can not listen to ghosts" (p.309). Why does Philip choose to listen to his ghost? 6. "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" ( Hamlet , Act 2 Scene 2). Like Hamlet, Philip is continually questioning what is right and what is wrong. Does he find the answer in the end? 7. How did Philip's father really die? Was it murder, suicide or just an accident? 8. Leah says "I hate God... Because he says you cant do things like you cant steal. But he steals. He steals people." (p.88) How does Leah's grief differ from Philip's? Is Philip's stealing - the minibus, the chemical from the school, the Nivea Anti Ageing Eye Cream from Boots - a manifestation of his grief? 9. Other themes to focus your discussion around: Revenge, Bullying, Mental Illness, History, Fathers, Clocks and time, Hamlet.

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