Reader’s Guide for Shattering Glass by Patty Campbell

ABOUT SHATTERING GLASS

Simon was easy to hate.  I never knew exactly why, there was too much to pick from.  I guess, really, we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn’t realize it until the day we killed him.

Fat, clumsy Simon was a dweeb, there was no doubt about it, with his pocket protector jammed with pens, his shirt tucked into his underwear, and his irritating habit of swiping at his nose.  Everybody made him the butt of their jokes, especially Lance, who had been head guy at Brazos Vale High School until Rob showed up. But now Rob is the leader, along with his posse--rich and intellectual Young, good-looking Bob, and sweet, dumb Coop, the star linebacker.  Rob has a deep need to prove his power, and so when he enlists the three of them in the seemingly impossible job of noticing that being nice to Simon is the way to get close to Rob.

But then the project--and the book--turns dark, as Simon begins to show a devious side, a talent for hacking into the school computer, and tendency to do what the others can’t--defy Rob.  Each of the other three are held in bondage by “something missing” a hidden empty place at the center, that makes them vulnerable to Robs manipulation.  But Rob, too, has a terrible secret, and when Simon uncovers it, Young finds that he is linked to Rob in a net of obligation, even to the point of giving up the girl he loves so that Simon can appear at the dance with the perfect date.  The story moves inexorably to the dark equipment room where the complex interlocking motivations of these five will explode into a bloody catharsis.

With this first young adult novel, Gail Giles takes her places among the great writers of the genre.  Her ear for the adolescent male voice is flawless and dialogue is tight, contemporary and often very funny.  WIth compassion and insight, she weaves understanding for six fully developed characters into a seamless tapestry.  The structure of the novel is brilliantly original, using a device that layers the present and the future, giving a double dimension to the events of the narrative and pulling reader forward with hints and questions.  Themes of social guilt, the abuse of power, never weight down the strong forward pull of the story in this enthralling and startling novel.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. 1. The title of this is, of course, a grim pun.  But beyond that, how does the phrase ‘shattering glass’ (or shattering Glass”) describe the action?  What are the qualities of something that is shattered, rather than just broken?  What might happen to someone who is near a shattering?
   

2. 2. Shattering Glass share a theme, as well as sever other points of similarity, with two masterworks: The Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.  If you have read either or both of these novels, compare the opening sentence of The Chocolate War to the opening of Shattering Glass: the murdered outcast Simon in  The Lord of the Flies to Gail Giles’ Simon, or the violent conclusions of all three.  Do they agree about the consequences of following an amoral but charismatic leader?  How do they differ?
   

3. 3. Young notices that Simon has “skin like the underside of a toad,” a vivid example of Gail Giles’ use of figurative language.  What other striking metaphors and similes does she use to describe Simon’s eyebrows? The way Rob wears his confidence” Lance’s usefulness? The Goth and tweakers hanging on the edges of the action? The clerk at the driver’s license bureau?Robs controlled rage just before the murder?
   

4. 4. The extraordinary device of the quotes at the beginning of each chapter are like those “scenes from next week’s episode” on TV.  They tell us what’s going to happen (or what’s already happened) but not when or why or how.  Then the narrative lets us watch events moving in that direction.  These are the voices of people who already know the whole story.  They pull us along with questions, surprises, insights from new points of view, foreshadowing of things to come.  What is the event about which all these various voices are speaking?  When does it take place?  How does this future knowledge affect your feelings toward the characters’ hopes and fears?
   

5. 5. Rather than being grateful when Rob shows that he intends to bring him out of geekdom, Simon immediately suspects Robs motives.  “What’s in this for you?” he asks suspiciously.  Blair Crews sys, “Simon, though, he let Rob show him how to dress and behave, but he never lost himself in Rob.”  Why is he not taken in by Rob, as the others are?  Why is he able to be the only one to defy Rob?
   

6. 6. Young hates Simon from the first, for reasons he doesn’t quite understand.  When Simon gives him just the right gift--an expensive blank journal--he reacts with resentment instead of pleasure.  Why does he feel this way?  “Glass was my fun house mirror,” he says.  What is there about Young that makes him see Simon as a distorted image of himself?  At the beginning he also says, “We each hated him for a different reason.”  Is this true?  Later, Young accuses Simon of always needing to have permission.  Who is Young really talking about?
   

7. 7. Rob manipulates people so he can feel powerful, and their response is of little interest to him as long as they do his will.  Simon, however, manipulates people out of vengeance, and their pain is the whole point.  If innocent bystanders like Alice also get hurt, it is of no consequence to him.  What is there about Alice that should have made him especially sympathetic toward her?  Why does that work in exactly the opposite way?
   

8. 8. Why is it so hard for Young to ask Ronna out?  What is there in his past that undermines his male confidence?  If Rob hadn’t pushed him, would he ever have gotten up the nerve?  Why is it Ronna that Rob chooses to give to Young?  What is it about his feelings for Rob that obligates Young to agree to give Ronna away even though he loves her?
   

9. 9.The tender sensuality and poignancy of the love scenes between Young and Ronna are the material of poetry.  Try your hand at writing a poem, either from Ronna’s of Young’s point of view, about their first date, their lovemaking, their breakup, or Ronna’s heartbreaking question:  “Is this the very best day I’ll ever have?”
   

10. 10.Young, Coop, and Bob each have a different basic weakness--an empty place or something missing--and a related secret that they must preserve at all costs.  What are these weaknesses and secrets, and how does the need to keep them hidden make each one vulnerable?
    

11. 11.Young and Rob are also linked by a secret in their pasts.  Why does Young trust Rob with this secret?  When Rob gives Young reassurance about his self-doubt, who else is he trying to reassure?  If his words can “patch the hole” in Young why can’t he heal himself?  When Young discovers Rob’s secret, how does this knowledge obligate him to Rob?  What one word from Lance makes it necessary for Rob to annihilate him?  Why?
    

12. 12.“Ronna told me this was all about fathers,” says her dad.  Take another look at the brief vignettes that show each boy interacting with his father.  Coop reveals that “Youn and I both made Rob into a substitute father.  We couldn’t deal with the ones we’d been given.  And Rob made us feel like successful sons.”  What is the central fear “all about fathers” that haunts each of the members of Rob’s posse?  How does this fear motivate their actions.
    

13. 13.“Anyone who is the alpha wolf take over,” say Blair Crews.  “Rob came in and just took over the lead.”  Why do groups need an “Alpha wolf?”  How do such leaders get the job?  Are most people more comfortable having decisions made for them?  Why?
    

14. 14.Getting Simon elected Class Favorite, says Rob is a way “to put things right.  In my head, kind of.”  Why is it more satisfying for him to make Simon Class Favorite than to be elected Class Favorite himself?  Why is this goal so supremely important to him?”  What empty place in him does it fill?  Rob says that Lance suffers more in becoming an outcast than Simon, because Lance has had popularity and lost it.  What has Rob possessed and then lost?
    

15. 15. The Class Favorites election is a traditional custom at Brazos Vale High School.  What do you think of such a competition?  Does it cause more pain than happiness?  Why do people enjoy ranking each other like this?
    

16. 16.“There was a cold center in Rob where his heart should have been,” remembers his girlfriend, Blair Crews.  Rob explains clearly that in rescuing Simon, he’s not acting out of compassion, but because the mob, in its rejection of Simon, has taken the control Rob wants to keep.  What deeper sadism is revealed by his treatment of the frog?  Are the events in his past enough to explain such intense pleasure in cruelty?  Would he have been a coldhearted manipulator even if he had had a normal childhood?
    

17. 17.Some of what Rob does is good--saving Simon from geekhood, comforting Young’s fears about his sexual identity, offering friendly attention to everyone at school.  Yet we know all of this comes from his intense need for power.  Is a goo act done for the wrong reasons poisoned?  On the other hand, is a bad act done for good reasons--like Simon take the ACT to help Coop--justified by its intention?
    

18. 18.It has been said that for evil to win out, all that has to happen is for the good people to do nothing.  By following Rob unquestioningly, the boys allow his need for power and control to take them to a terrible end.  But there are a number of places in the story where they could have resisted if they had listened to their consciences, small decisions that add up.  Where are some of those turning points, those moments when they could have said no, for Young? For Coop?
    

19. 19.Young fantasizes about killing Simon, and wonders “how it must feel to let loose, to allow the darkness trapped inside you out to run rampant.”  Why, then, is he the only one to stand back during the murder?  And why is he the only one willing to take the responsibility of paying for the crime?  Is someone who allows a terrible deed as guilty as those who commit it?
    

20. 20.A novel usually consists of a long rising action, then a climactic scene that bring the conflict to a confrontation, followed by a final section that resolves it all. In Shattering Glass, Gail Giles end the book immediately after the climactic scene.  What is there about the way this novel is structured that makes this possible?  How do we already know what happened afterward?  Is this ending satisfying in spite of being so abrupt?
    

21. 21. In the future Young will write a successful book and sign his royalties over to the injured Coop.  What do we know about the subject of that book, and its format?