1. The novel begins with the wedding of Mayya to Abdallah, but quickly jumps back and forth in time to explore the lives and relationships of the characters. How does this structure affect your understanding of the story? Did you find it easy or challenging to follow the different threads of the plot?

2. When Abdallah asks his wife if she loves him, she responds, "It's the Egyptian films, have they eaten your brain?" What do you make of her response? What does she mean? How does Abdallah react?

3. One of the central conflicts of the novel is the relationship between Abdallah and his father, what are the root issues affecting this relationship? How does this conflict drive the plot and affect the characters in the novel? In what ways does Abdallah’s relationship with his father shape his relationships with his own children?

4. How do the characters navigate the tensions between tradition and individual desire?

5. What is the significance of the novel's ending? Why does it leave various plotlines, themes, and character arcs unresolved?

6. What do you think of the author’s choice to include so many characters? Did having so many people to keep track of enhance or hurt your appreciation of the novel?

7. Discuss the significance of the minor characters in Celestial Bodies – e.g. Masouda (Shanna’s enslaved mother), Marwan (Abdallah’s cousin), Maneen (the beggar) – How do they contribute to the novel's themes of memory, identity, and power dynamics within Omani society?

8. What is the significance of Zarifa's character in Celestial Bodies? How does she challenge traditional gender and class norms? And how does she embody the tensions between modernity and tradition?

9. What role do portrayals of masculine and feminine gender roles and societal expectations play in driving the story? How do these portrayals contrast against one another?

10. Most of the chapters are told in the third person point-of-view, except for Abdallah, Mayya's husband, who speaks to us in his own voice. Why might Alharthi have made the decision to let Abdallah tell his own story?

11. What did you think of Alharthi’s use of language in the novel, with her focus on metaphors and poetic imagery. How did this affect your reading experience? Did you find the language to be challenging or rewarding?

12. The book's title, literally, means "ladies of the moon." How does this title (perhaps more so than Celestial Bodies) reflect the novel?

13. The novel won the Man Booker International Prize in 2019, making it the first book by an Arab author to receive this prestigious award. How does the novel contribute to contemporary Arabic literature and global literature more broadly? What can we learn about the diversity and richness of human experience from reading this novel?