When The World Is Ending: Book Club Questions for The Prince and The Apocalypse

Nov 14, 2025
3 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Girl and boy looking at each other with a comet in the background

Age: YA (14+)

Genre: Romance

Quick Review of The Prince and The Apocalypse

This high-octane YA romance grabbed my attention right off the bat. I knew Wren and Theo would fall in love, but would both of them survive the comet? That question drove me through the book. I loved exploring what life would look like when you knew it was about to end, especially if you found yourself in as unideal of circumstances as Wren did. The banter is out-of-this-world good, and the book makes you take a good, hard look at your life and ask if you’re appreciating and living it to the fullest.

Book Club Questions

Wren believes in plans over fate. Is there a way to believe in both? How does the book challenge her mindset?
Wren’s motto is, “Girls with plans don’t need saving.” Do you have a phrase, idea, or trait that defines you? Has it ever been challenged, and if so, what was the outcome?
An exhausted airline worker tells a frantic Wren, “Would you want to spend your last week alive in an airport?” With an apocalypse imminent, do you feel like people with certain jobs have a responsibility to continue them? If so, which jobs and why? If you had an essential job, would you keep doing it during your last week of life?
Wren desperately wants to prove her worth to her genius older sister, Brooke, which leads to stress, missed experiences, and inflexible goals. By the book’s end, Brooke admits that she’s not happy with even her “perfect” life. What leads people to put so much energy into pursuing goals they don’t actually care about?
With the comet coming, people do things they wouldn’t be brave enough to do otherwise (tell their crush they love them, dye their hair). If the world were ending in eight days, what last-chance thing would you do?
The end of the world also makes people do things they would never do because they’re illegal or against a moral code. Wren lies to the police, steals a car, etc. If you were in Wren’s position, what laws or moral codes would you break to get home? Does your answer change if you were advising your spouse, child, or other loved one on what they should do to get home to you?
Was it selfish or selfless for Theo to disappear so his nanny, Penny, could have a place in the bunker?
Throughout the book, Wren has various reasons to turn Theo in. Would any of them have convinced you? (E.g., learning about his depression, learning about the reward, learning about the bunker.)
Wren detests royalty as an institution, but when she can’t rent a car because she’s underage, she asks Theo to use his royal status to force the employee to do it, noting that she’s willing to lose her ideals to get what she wants. Have you ever been in a situation where you had to pick between sticking to a belief/ideal and losing something important to you? What did you decide, and how did you make the decision?
On the Grecian island of Amorgos, Wren and Theo argue over whether to get fake married. Wren sees it as a means to an end. Theo doesn’t want to cheapen the act of getting married, even if he’s about to die. Whose feelings do you relate to more, and why?
Throughout the book, Wren uses avoidance to deal with her feelings about hard topics. In her place, do you think you could have handled your emotions in a healthier way? If so, how?
In the months after the world didn’t end, Wren reconnects with her passion for photography and rebuilds her relationship with her sister. If you lived through a situation like this, is there anything about your life you would change?