SuitabookSecret Society
Tom Dolby
- Reading
- Talk before or during reading about consent, pressure and secrecy, then revisit those ideas as events develop. Check in after the initiation and body discovery, since their emotional and graphic impact is not clear.
- Themes
- Ambition and promised success: Three teenagers accept membership after receiving a message promising success and fame; their ambitions are subsequently fulfilled week after week. The premise clearly links achievement with membership, but it is not clear whether the story ultimately praises, criticises or complicates that bargain.
- Consent, belonging and control: The characters do not ask to be Society members, yet some agree to its demands, including a harrowing initiation and a forced tattoo; membership is described as difficult to leave. The premise presents belonging alongside coercive demands, but the book’s moral position on the Society and its members’ agency remains unresolved.
- Worth knowing
- The book includes a harrowing initiation, a forced tattoo and the discovery of a body.