Pucking Sweet

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Do you think Poppy handles her family in the right way? If you’ve ever had an unreconcilable conflict with your family, how did you handle it or wish you had handled it?

2. Lukas doesn’t decorate his house in part because he feels anxious that he could be traded to another team. Have you ever had a precarious employment situation? Did that affect your interpersonal relationships, as it does Lukas’s?

3. Do you believe that zodiac signs influence your personality or behavior?

4. The novel argues that it is more important to pursue happiness than to focus on your image. Do you agree? Do you think there is ever a time when image is more important? If so, describe this circumstance.

5. Have you, like Colton, ever been forced to give up something you love because of a health concern? If so, how did you handle it?

6. Do you think friendship is an important precursor to romance? Why or why not?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Colton is careful about his image because he is a Black hockey player. How does the novel present (or elide) questions of race and racism in a majority-white sport?

2. At the beginning of the novel, Rath includes a list of “tropes” and “tags,” a convention that comes from fanfiction communities. In what other ways does the novel strike you as being influenced by fanfiction?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. As Rath highlights in her author’s note, Pucking Sweet overlaps with other romance narratives from her series (Rachel, Mars, Jake, and Caleb from Pucking Around and Ryan and Tess from Pucking Wild). How does witnessing these other relationships unfold affect how Poppy, Lukas, and Colton view their own relationship?

2. Consider how the different characters’ points of view reveal different things about the protagonists. How, for example, does Colton see Lukas differently from the way Lukas sees himself? How does Poppy understand the men—as players first and later as romantic partners?

3. Look at the different discussions of family in the novel, like Poppy’s family, the Rays, or the family that the protagonists form together. Does the novel offer a clear vision of what “family” means? If so, what is it?

4. How does the concept of “playing games” affect Colton, Poppy, and Lukas’s relationship? Consider explicit games like bingo or hockey as well as the colloquial idea of “playing games” when pursuing relationships in your answer.

5. Pucking Sweet is a long book with many chapters. How did this division affect your experience of the book’s pacing? Did the evolution of the protagonists’ relationship feel slow or fast to you?