NOTHING SERIOUS by Justine Lèvy
Reading Group Guide

1. What do Louise’s relationships with her mother and grandmother reveal
about her? In what ways do each of them bring out the “real” Louise?

2. Why is it important that we meet Pablo early on in the story? How is he
different from Louise? How is he different from Adrien? Does this help
Louise to see herself in a different light?

3. Louise lies to Pablo about her birthday, and when he sees her real
birthday on her passport, he is angry with her. She says, “I tried to
reassure him, you know I have Scorpio rising, that’s good too, it’s almost
better, but I saw he didn’t believe me anymore, that’s too bad, for once I
wasn’t lying, I felt completely naked for not lying.” (p. 64) Why does she
feel “naked” for not lying? Who else does Louise lie to?

4. Does the structure of the book help you fully experience Louise’s state
of mind? Why would the author choose this out-of-sequence narrative style to
tell this particular story?

5. Louise remembers Adrien telling her: “…you don’t care if people like you
or not, you don’t need me, you don’t need anyone, you’re strong, stronger
than I am actually.” (p. 58) Do you think he is right?

6. How would you characterize the relationships between men and women in
this book? Lousie and Adrien, Louise’s father and mother, Adrien and Paula,
Louise and Pablo, Louise and her father. In what ways are they alike? In
what ways are they different?

7. What if Louise had asked her father for help with her drug addiction, as
she wanted to? What ultimately stops her from revealing her dependency on
amphetamines?

8. Louise yearns for a childlike state: “Will I ever experience time again
the way it was before, when I wasn’t afraid, when nothing was that serious,
when no one died, when cancer happened only to writers, when Adrien was the
man of my life, when Dad always settled everything?” (p. 100) Could it be
argued that this is the central question of the book? Why or why not?

9. Compare the way Adrien and Louise speak to each other early in the story
with their final conversation at the café in Chapter 16. Have Louise and
Adrien both changed, or just Louise?

10. In what ways do the tensions between parents and children – Louise and
her father, Adrien and his father, Louise and her mother -- inform the
story? How did Louise and Adrien’s relationship resemble that of a
parent/child?

11. “Adrien left me for someone else. Adrien won’t come back. That’s what it
is to be an adult. Being an adult means being replaceable.” (p.77) Why do
you think Louise believes this? Do you agree?

12. Louise struggles through many trying periods – her grandmother’s death,
her mother’s cancer, her husband’s infidelity, her late-term abortion, her
addiction to amphetamines -- is there one that holds greater weight than
the others for her? Why?

13. “And the instant I see, I start shouting: The thousands of people around
me are silent, concentrated, but I’m shouting… and when the bull collapses I
shout in its place and I collapse too.” (p. 205) What does Louise’s reaction
to the bullfight signify?

14. At the end of the novel, Louise says, “Life is a rough draft, in the
end. Every story is the rough draft of the next one.” Do you agree?

15. NOTHING SERIOUS is a roman à clef, a novel based on real events. Why do
you think the author chose to write in this style instead of a straight
autobiography? What are the advantages and disadvantages presented by
fictionalizing actual events?

16. Do any of the real-life counterparts of this roman à clef have any
reason to be upset? Do you think Louise’s depictions are fair and honest?
Should they be?

print page