Book Club Questions
1. How does the title of Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls work in relation to the stories?
2. What do the girls and women in the stories want and what stops them getting what they want? Are their situations familiar in any way?
3. What do you think are the central themes of the book? And which themes resonated for you?
4. Are the dangers in the stories real or imagined, or both?
5. Which stories stood out for you, and why?
6. Which character did you most relate to and why?
7. What surprised you most about the book?
8. Which scene has stuck with you the most?
9. Are there any characters you'd like to deliver a lecture to? If so, who? What would you say?
10. How do the stories work as a collection?
Longlisted for the 2023 Indie Book Awards.
Excitable girls rush out to meet life; what could go wrong? A masterful debut about the terrifying thrills of innocence from a voice of experience.
Teenagers sneak out to the creek for a wild New Year's Eve party. A sleep-deprived woman who imagines she is pregnant to a Viking faces her scathing sixteen-year-old self. A woman in love wakes up in a van Gogh painting.
These gem-like stories are about the desire to rush out and meet life; about getting in over your head; about danger, and damage, and what it means to survive – and not always survive – the risk of being young. They chart the borderlands between girls and women, daughters and mothers, freedom and fear.
Emerging fully-formed and singing songs of both innocence and experience, Anne Casey-Hardy is the rarest of new voices: at the same time reckless and entirely in control; funny and frightening; wise and full-blooded.
Praise for Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls
‘I find myself haunted by this innocent, menacing, blackly funny and fabulous book. Anne Casey-Hardy’s writing hums with a dangerous, coiled energy in sly, ghostly stories of girls and women striking back, lying low, busting out, triumphing even while sinking. Casey-Hardy is a raw, rare talent with an unforgettable voice.’ Charlotte Wood, author of The Weekend and The Natural Way of Things
'Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls buzzes with energy. Anne Casey-Hardy is a wonderful fiction writer. Her characters are brave and full of soul. In mapping the lives and the places where stories thrive, Casey-Hardy also touches our hearts. Such a gift.' Tony Birch, author of Dark as Last Night and The White Girl
‘Electric, irreverent, haunting, heart-breaking – one of the best short story collections you'll ever read. An exceptional debut from a hugely talented writer.’ Wayne Marshall, author of Shirl
‘You’ll be transfixed by the misadventures of Casey-Hardy's dangerously innocent heroines. Her fractured fairy tales are like nothing you’ve come across before: unnerving, brilliant, hilarious, heart-stirring.’ Lucinda Holdforth, author of Leading Lines