The novel is a 'time-travel' book. Discuss why the author would have written the contemporary story of David in the past tense and the story from the past of Dauoodaset in the present tense.
Some readers find the movement back and forth between the two stories hard to get used to.
The author says that he did not deliberately set out to confuse the reader, yet he did not want to shy away from a particular narrative style just to make things easier for the reader. Discuss whether you think the book's narrative style works, and whether you think there is another, perhaps better, way the same story could have been told. Look for similarities between David and Dauoodaset. Talk about how adolescence has remained the same, how it has changed. Think about how the incident upstairs in the steamy bathroom relates to the use of a sweathouse in the Beothuk story.