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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Donna say in "Primadonna's Story" that she goes hard for Dray?

2. What does Kasim say when Fabiola worries about her clothes in Chapter 14?

3. How does Kasim talk about selling weed occasionally in Chapter 9?

4. In Chapter 2, what does the airport desk say about Fabiola's mother?

5. In "Princess' Story," how does Pri say finances were after their father's death?

Short Essay Questions

1. What surprises Fabiola about the Detroit airport in Chapter 1? Who is she meeting?

2. Where does Fabiola go in Chapter 15? What does she do as a result?

3. Why does Pri say in Primadonna's Story that she goes hard for Dray? How does she justify their relationship?

4. What question does Fabiola ask Kasim that makes him angry in Chapter 11? Why does it?

5. What does Fabiola do to worship in the morning in Chapter 2? When Chantal asks, what does she say about why she does this?

6. Where does Kasim take Fabiola on a date in Chapter 14? What does he say about her when she is nervous going?

7. What does Majorie say in Majorie and Valerie's Story happened after the fall of the dictator? Why did they come to America?

8. What does Chantal say about Bad Legs in Chapter 8? What does Fabiola resolve to do?

9. What is the sister's nickname as said in "Princess's Story" Why are they known as this?

10. At the nightclub, what does Fabiola remember about the boys back home? What does she think when she meets Dray?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Fabiola's determination to intercede in her mother's detention, and Dray's relationship with Donna, leads to her mother coming home, but Kasim dead. Does Fabiola need to interfere like she chooses to do? What are the consequences of her interference? Why does she not wait as she is told to by her aunt and cousins?

Make this a twofold paper where you say what you think about her decision and also what the novel is saying: is it saying you must interfere to change fate, or you must sit back?

Essay Topic 2

When Dray dies, in the next chapter, "Drayton's Story," he says that you realize after death you have died before and recalls how he previously died while running with a bullet to the head (313). How do his lives and deaths connect to the larger struggle of systematic racism? Tie his story to one other character's story. How are they fighting against something larger than themselves? What is the novel saying with this circularity about the history of racism and systematic struggle?

Essay Topic 3

In the beginning of the novel, Fabiola is separated from her mother. By the end of the novel, she is on her way to be reunited with her mother, but the novel does not actually include her being reunited. Why does the novel not show this reunification? What is the novel instead about through the process of Fabiola returning to her mother?

(see the answer keys)

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