Introduction

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Excerpt

At day’s end, as the Southern Australian sky shades into dark, and all the sounds of earth and sea ease into an ancient rhythm, Gigi, Ana, and I sit around a beach bonfire in our hoodies and UGGs. The sand lumps under our blankets as we roast lime-and-ponzu-marinated shrimp skewers with my coach Bomb and the other trainers, who regale us with surf lore that becomes more dangerous and mythical with each sip of their Coopers Light. We sit enraptured: Ana twirling the tips of her sun-bleached dreads, Gigi taking glassy-eyed pulls off her beer, me downing a bottle of Tasmanian rainwater, silent as nuns, listening and living the details as a light mist creeps onto the beach. I wonder if someday our stories will be told in the same way on some far-off beach at night to other young women surfers who long for Olympic gold. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1.The spirit of athletic competition burns with the same intensity in both men and women, but women have the added burden of being measured against their male counterparts. How does Mafuri confront this issue?

2. The settings in That Crazy Perfect Someday are integral to the story. Discuss how the settings and landscapes themselves are characters, what significance they have, and how might the story change if the waves in San Diego were ideal for surfing.

3. Family bonds and loneliness are two major narrative themes. Discuss some others.

4. What factors draw Mafuri and Nixon together? What type of connection do they have? At what point does the relationship change, and how does it resolve at the end of the story?

5. What role does Social Media play in the story? And how does it affect Mafuri and Nixon?

6. Mafuri has a bitter rivalry with Kimberly Masters, but Mafuri’s main rival is someone else. Who is it?

7. The sinking aircraft carrier is a metaphor for the trajectory of Jax’s life. What other metaphors relate to Mafuri’s life?

8. What’s at the root of Jax’s depression and what causes him to fall further into a morass of darkness? In what specific ways does it affect Mafuri?

9. There is a significant distinction between those who surf and bona fide surfers. Discuss the differences and the examples depicted in the story.

10. “Yeah, that crazy perfect someday,” Mafuri says to her father while on the bridge of USS Hillary Rodham Clinton. What does she mean by it?

Weblinks

»	Author's web site
»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Kirkus Book Review

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