Book Club Questions for Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

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Book club questions for Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty takes an in-depth look at all the big questions surrounding her buzzy new novel. There will be spoilers so for more context about the story, check out my spoiler-free review first.

I found Here One Moment both deeply unsettling, especially at the beginning, but also quite interesting. I just had to know where the story would lead. Plot twists were done well and reveals took turns I didn’t always anticipate.

While I felt it’s an uneven read at times, and it could have used another edit, I did think overall it was a pretty solid story.

Tell me your thoughts about the book in the comments section below!

The Synopsis

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.

How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.”

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

Book Club Questions for Here One Moment

1. The story starts off on that fateful day when Cherry predicts when the passengers will die and how. What were your thoughts as you read all of that unfold?
2. Why was it important for the author to make sure to describe Cherry (aka The Death Lady) as rather unremarkable in both appearance and demeanor?
3. How would you react if you were on a plane and someone like Cherry predicted everyone’s death, including yours? Would you believe it? And if so, would you try to change your fate as well?
4. We then follow six passengers after that day, as they try to move on with their lives. However, Cherry’s predictions are a constant threat. Why do you think the author chose these six passengers to focus on? Which storyline were you most engaged with and felt was most relatable?
5. We also read about Cherry’s past, starting with her childhood, to get a full picture of the woman who would eventually be known as “The Death Lady.” What was your impression of the sections dedicated to Cherry? Why was it necessary to include Cherry’s backstory?
6. Do you feel her mom, who ran a business as a fortune teller, truly had the ability to see one’s future? Or do you believe she told people what both they wanted and needed to hear? Could it be a mixture of both?
7. Let’s talk about Cherry’s mother performing a reading on Cherry, where her mother seems to see glimpses of Cherry’s future. Do you feel it was truly her future or do you think it was a hopeful guess?
8. We learn that Cherry did not take her mother’s profession seriously. But at the same time, Cherry had some “feelings” and “visions” that turned out to be true. Do you feel the author was trying to say that Cherry could see into the future or do you think it was simply anxious thoughts (fearing the worst outcomes)?
9. What were your thoughts when three of Cherry’s predictions came true?
10. Each of the six passengers take action to try and avoid their supposed fate. Eventually, they all take steps to better their lives. Let’s talk about how their lives changed forever after Cherry’s predictions. Would they have made any of those changes without that fateful flight?
11. It all eventually gets revealed that Cherry’s predictions, at least in her own view, were not true visions—but a combination of an emotional breakdown from the loss of her husband and two friends, and not taking care of herself in the aftermath. Were you satisfied by this reveal or did you want it to be something more?
12. While two of the predictions involved an elderly couple in their 100s, the one predication was a young girl, Kayla, who died in a traffic accident. Kayla was driving overly cautious as a result of Cherry’s prediction and she was hit and killed by another car. Do you feel Cherry bears some responsibility for the impact of her predictions? Why or why not?
13. What were your thoughts on the ending and epilogue? What happens next for all the main characters?
14. What is your opinion on free will and destiny? Do you believe everything is destined or do you think people have a hand in their own fates?
15. If you had information about your future, would you try to change it or would you ride it out and see what happens?

Additional Recommendations

Hope you enjoyed book club questions for Here One Moment! Here are some more recommendations along with links to book club questions.

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?

This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings.

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

The four Delaney children―Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke―were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.

One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted.

Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure―but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.

Happy reading!