CUSS.
REPE
D. DIS AT
A .
RE
About the Book
Fifteen-year-old Blaise Montgomery lives in the gritty outskirts of
Washington, D.C., where a stray bullet can steal a life on the way
to school. Drugs and violence are the only way to survive, so Blaise
and her friends turn to gangs for safety, money, and love. When
Blaise is invited to join Core 9, one of the most infamous crews, she
jumps at the chance. After a brutal initiation ritual, things only get
more dangerous and tensions with a rival gang heat up. Trek, the
head of Core 9, asks Blaise to be his “lure,” the sexy bait he’ll use
to track down enemy gang members and enact revenge. With death
lurking around every corner, should Blaise continue to follow the
only path she’s ever known, or cut and run?
Discussion Questions
1. How does Blaise’s thought in chapter one that “there were
worse things in life than dying” set the tone for the rest of the
novel (p. 2)? Why does Blaise hold this belief? Do you think
that there are worse things than dying? Why or why not?
2. How did the drive-by shooting of Blaise’s childhood friend
Gabriella change Blaise?
3. How did Blaise’s mother’s behavior affect who Blaise became
as a teenager?
4. Why does Core 9 want Blaise? Why does Blaise want C9? Put
yourself in Blaise’s shoes: What would you have done?
5. If you were being initiated into a gang and had to choose,
would you go for the jump-in, as Blaise and Ariel did, or the
rollins, as Melissa did? Why?
6. Tara promises, “Life gets better when you’re ganged up”
(p. 27). How is this statement both true and false?
7. Describe Blaise, Melissa, Ariel, and Kaylee’s friendship. How
do guys alter that friendship? How do gangs alter it? In what
ways do the girls remain true to one another?
8. How does Blaise’s worry over her grandmother influence her
choices? Similarly, how does Blaise’s grandmother’s love for
her granddaughter shape her own actions?
9. Why does Ariel scoff at “the American dream” (p. 51)?
10. What is the “gangster’s dilemma” (p. 242)? How is it yet
another thing entrapping the characters?
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Book
Club
Pick!
11. Poverty, drugs, teen pregnancy, absentee parents, abuse,
neglect, violence, murder—it’s all here in The Lure. How do
those things taken together create the invisible wall of “the
neighborhood”?
12. How is Blaise pulled between Rico and Satch? How does each
guy love Blaise? How does she feel about them in turn?
13. Why does Blaise think that Satch has betrayed her? How do
Satch, Melissa, and Kaylee all surprise Blaise?
14. What do you think motivates Trek? How is he a master
manipulator, and how does he get away with using people
for his own gain? What appeals to him about Blaise, and how
does that attraction end up being his downfall?
15. What significance does the book’s title have beyond the role
Blaise takes on for Core 9?
16. Though Blaise begins the novel thinking that “there were
worse things in life than dying,” she doggedly refuses to die
at every turn. How is Blaise a survivor? Which other charac-
ters have that survival instinct?
17. At the novel’s close, Blaise says, “Maybe, when fate gives you
something bad, it’s not to defeat you, it’s so you’ll see the
problem and do something about it?” (p. 274). What does
she mean? What’s “the problem,” and what does she do about
it?
18. What do you imagine happens to Blaise after this story ends?
Join the community at www.epicreads.com
1/14