READERS GUIDE

1. The title of Love Can’t Feed You is mentioned when Queenie’s mother compares her life to her old friend’s, a woman named Juliet who left the nursing program after marrying a sailor from Virginia. Discuss the meaning behind the phrase “love can’t feed you.” Based on Queenie’s and her mother’s life experiences, do you agree or disagree with her statement? Why or why not?
   
   
2. In the novel, Queenie is asked: “Do you know what real women do?” She thinks to herself, “The answer is a trapdoor. A girl wants to be a woman…But when she reaches the destination, the ground shifts. Suddenly, what worked before no longer does. What glitters isn’t gold after all.” In a novel set during our main character’s coming-of-age, what does Queenie discover about womanhood as she reaches it? Why do you think she calls it a trapdoor? What experiences have disillusioned her to what it means to be a woman in the world? 
   
   
3. Queenie’s mother is one of the women who immigrated to the U.S. to find work as a nurse as part of the wave of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in healthcare, and she spends much of her time caring for another family. How did it affect Queenie to be apart from her mother while she was still in the Philippines? How did their relationship evolve as Queenie met the new version of her mom after that time apart and as she started to become a woman herself?
   
   
4. Throughout the book, we meet a variety of different characters (Yan, Zeus, Masha, etc.) who enter Queenie’s life after her family moves to the U.S. How do these characters impact her story and her growth?
   
   
5. Moving to a new country while transitioning into adulthood is no easy task. What advice about life or love would you offer to Queenie if you had the chance?
   
   
6. Queenie takes college classes but most of her education happens outside the classroom. Where else does Queenie’s education continue? What lessons does she learn?
   
   
7. Trace Queenie’s relationship with her father over the course of the novel. How does what happens to him at the end shift Queenie’s understanding of who he is? How does this tragedy reform their relationship?
   
   
8. What do you make of Queenie’s relationship with Masha? What does their connection teach Queenie about herself? Does it teach her anything more about what it means to be a woman, or a good girl?
   
   
9. Are there any villains in this novel? What do you make of the people Queenie meets and the systems she’s forced to navigate? 
   
   
10. Queenie is constantly being pulled between different parts of herself–her mother and her father, her home country and her new one, her Chinese heritage and her Filipino one, her own desires and her family’s expectations. Do you think she is able to reconcile these identities for herself by the end of the book? Does she find answers to any of the questions life has thrown at her?
    
    
11. Does Love Can’t Feed You remind you of any other novels you’ve read or movies or TV shows you’ve seen? Did you find the direction of the story surprising? What elements jumped out at you? What felt familiar or unfamiliar?