Blood Like Mine Questions and Answers

This companion digs into the hard questions raised by Blood Like Mine — choices that define Rebecca and Moonflower, the hunter who mirrors his prey, and the supernatural rules that break every expectation. Every answer stays grounded in the novel’s chapters and evidence, avoiding vague literary analysis.

Why does Rebecca refuse to let Moonflower feed on the homeless woman in Scottsdale?

Rebecca physically pulls Moonflower away from the woman, even though Moonflower has lost control. The act shows Rebecca still draws a moral line: the woman is innocent, not a predator. In Chapter 37, Rebecca later ties Moonflower up because “the other thing” took over. This moment forces Rebecca to confront that her daughter’s hunger no longer discriminates, making the search for a more controlled source urgent.

What does the “untethered string” Moonflower feels represent?

After escaping the forest, Moonflower senses a thread pulling her toward the city lights and her mother. In Chapter 27, she recalls being lost in a mall as a child, feeling her tether cut. The string symbolizes the unbreakable maternal bond that guides her even in darkness. Unlike the mall, she is no longer untethered — she can feel Rebecca’s location, which drives her to the airport building where her mother is held.

How does Donner’s approach to catching Rebecca mirror her own methods?

Donner creates a fake teenage online profile to lure a predator — exactly the tactic Rebecca uses to bait men. In Chapter 47, he arranges a meet at a skate park, but the trap backfires when a vigilante group ambushes him. The parallel exposes Donner’s moral compromise: to catch a killer of predators, he adopts the same deceptive hunting strategy, blurring the line between lawman and vigilante.

What is the significance of Guthrie’s mother’s story in Chapter 42?

Guthrie’s mother was infected but refused to harm humans, slowly starving herself to death rather than feed on a person. Guthrie tells Moonflower he watched her die in agony, locked in the basement. This backstory provides the novel’s clearest moral counterpoint: Rebecca chooses to kill predators, while Guthrie’s mother chose a painful passive resistance. It also explains why Guthrie now helps infected people — he wants to prevent others from enduring his mother’s fate.

Why does Rebecca tell Donner that Moonflower “came back” from death?

In Chapter 25, Rebecca describes finding Moonflower dying from a throat attack in a park, holding her as she died, then seeing her return the next night. She insists the body walked out of the morgue. This confession shifts the interrogation from vigilante murders to the supernatural. It forces Donner to confront a reality he cannot reconcile with the FBI’s evidence, setting up the climactic confrontation where Moonflower’s true nature is revealed.

How does the photograph problem affect the investigation?

Moonflower’s skin reflects light so abnormally that every photograph turns into a shapeless glare, as noted in the rules journal in Chapter 48. Earlier, in Chapter 17, gas-station CCTV shows a child appearing as a glowing blur. This phenomenon prevents Donner from providing clear visual evidence to his superiors, contributing to the institutional disbelief he faces. It also reinforces the theme that Moonflower is something “other” that cannot be fully captured or documented.

What does the coyote’s submission in Chapter 36 reveal about Moonflower?

In the forest clearing, a coyote and three dogs approach Moonflower, then roll onto their backs, exposing their vulnerable bellies. She tells the coyote she will not eat it, thinking instead of wicked men. The scene reveals her growing control over her hunger and her predatory hierarchy: she spares animals but targets human predators. The coyote’s fear also hints at the primal power Moonflower now wields — a power she is still learning to manage.

Why does Rebecca sever the spinal cords of her victims?

After Moonflower feeds, Rebecca cuts between the vertebrae to sever the spinal cord, as she does in Chapter 22 with Craig Watters she shot in the neck. She later explains to Donner that she does this to “prevent infection” — meaning she fears the victim might resurrect, changed, just as Moonflower did after being attacked. In Chapter 39, she writes in her journal that she wonders if the farmer she killed might come back. This act shows her understanding of the condition and her attempt to contain it.

What is the “old way” of hunting mentioned in Chapter 12?

With no data on her phone and limited cash, Rebecca tells Moonflower they will go back to the “old way”: luring a predator at a mall food court. Moonflower pretends to be a runaway, and a man named Craig approaches offering shelter. Rebecca later shoots an arrow into his neck (Chapter 21). The “old way” refers to their established method of using Moonflower as bait to draw in child predators, a practice that has sustained them for years.

How does Rebecca’s 2010 confession letter contradict what occurs later?

In the handwritten letter from August 2010 (Chapter 33), Rebecca insists that “my daughter, Monica, has never harmed anyone. All these killings have been committed by me.” Yet in Chapter 37, Moonflower attacks a homeless woman, and in Chapter 29 she feral-ly attacks Donner at the Flagstaff field office. The letter is either a deliberate lie to protect her daughter or a sign of Rebecca’s denial about the creature Moonflower is becoming. The contradiction deepens the tragedy of a mother unwilling to accept her child’s transformation.

What is the significance of Moonflower’s recurring dream of dogs?

In Chapter 33, Moonflower dreams of dogs that run free among the trees, hunting with “teeth stained red and yellow” — pack animals that need nothing from humans. When she wakes, she remembers little except the feeling of running. The dream symbolizes her subconscious desire for freedom and belonging, separate from the constraints of her fugitive life. It also foreshadows her eventual feral escape in Chapter 60, where she climbs a police cruiser and howls into the night.

Why does Donner fire into the dark in the auto workshop?

When Rebecca shoots out the light in Chapter 57, plunging the room into darkness, Donner fires his revolver blindly. In Chapter 58, he misses Moonflower repeatedly as she dodges with superhuman speed. Donner’s decision to shoot in the dark reveals his desperation and loss of tactical discipline. He has abandoned any pretense of capture and now acts purely on the instinct to destroy what he cannot understand, a fatal shift that ends with him killing Rebecca instead of Moonflower.

How does Rebecca’s relationship with her own mother inform her actions?

Rebecca’s mother Denise appears in flashbacks and letters: she supports Rebecca through the pregnancy, helps raise Moonflower, and later dies of ALS (Chapter 9). In Chapter 30, Rebecca writes that she misses her mother but cannot risk contact. The deep bond with Denise drives Rebecca’s ferocious protectiveness. She will do anything to keep Moonflower alive because she knows what it feels like to lose a parent — and she refuses to inflict that grief on her own daughter.

What is the purpose of the “rules” journal entry in Chapter 48?

Rebecca writes a list of rules she learned from the Nurse: Moonflower is human, not immortal, not harmed by sunlight except burns, has a reflection, and must feed regularly. The entry ends with the line “She is human” repeated four times. This document serves as the novel’s thematic manifesto, insisting that even a predator child remains a person. It also provides the practical parameters of the condition, explaining why Moonflower can be photographed poorly but still cast a reflection, and why she must consume human blood.

Why does Liz Donner cut all contact with Marc after his drunken messages?

In Chapter 44, Liz calls Donner furious about messages he sent while drinking, threatening legal action and severing communication permanently. The rupture completes Donner’s isolation: he has already lost his job, his partner McGrath, and now his family. Liz’s decision underscores the human cost of his obsession. Unlike Rebecca, who sacrifices everything for her child, Donner sacrifices everything for a case, and the novel punishes him with total loneliness moments before his death.