Book Club Questions for The Prince and The Apocalypse

Wren Wheeler has flown five thousand miles across the ocean to discover she’s the worst kind of traveler: the kind who just wants to go home. Her senior-year trip to London was supposed to be life-changing, but by the last day, Wren’s perfectly-planned itinerary is in tatters. There's only one item left to check off: breakfast at The World’s End restaurant. The one thing she can still get right.

The restaurant is closed for renovations—of course—but there's a boy there, too. A very cute boy with a posh British accent who looks remarkably like the errant Prince Theo, on the run from the palace and his controlling mother. When Wren helps him escape a pack of tourists, the Prince scribbles down his number and offers her one favor in return. She doesn’t plan to take him up on it—until she gets to the airport and sees cancelled flights and chaos. A comet is approaching Earth, and the world is ending in eight days. Suddenly, that favor could be her only chance to get home to her family before the end of the world.

Wren strikes a bargain with the runaway prince: if she’ll be his bodyguard from London to his family’s compound in Santorini, he can charter her a private jet home in time to say goodbye. Traveling through Europe by boat, train, and accidentally stolen automobile, Wren finds herself drawn to the dryly sarcastic, surprisingly vulnerable Theo. But the Prince has his own agenda, one that could derail both their plans. When life as they know it will be over in days, is it possible to find a happy ending?

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.

Alert! Intriguing Discussion Ahead

I encourage book clubs to move beyond questions like, “What did you like/dislike about the book?” and “Who was your favorite character and why?” My discussion questions typically focus on ethical and moral dilemmas, book scenarios applied to real life, and character motivations.

Book Club Questions

1. Wren believes in plans over fate. Is there a way to believe in both? How does the book challenge her mindset?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. 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?

6. 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?

7. Was it selfish or selfless for Theo to disappear so his nanny, Penny, could have a place in the bunker?

8. 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.)

9. 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?

10. 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?

11. 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?

12. 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?

Below, you can download a PDF of The Prince and The Apocalypse discussion questions to print out and bring to your book club. I hope you have an intriguing discussion!

The Prince and The Apocalypse - Discussion Questions.pdf

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