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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. What is the name of Plum's first blind date?

2. What activity does Julia tell Plum that she hates to do during their conversation in Plum's bedroom?

3. What is the name of the foundation next door to The Calliope House that gets frequent bomb threats?

4. What is distinctive about the room in which hardcore porn videos are projected 24 hours a day within The Calliope House?

5. How many of the women affiliated with The Calliope House actually live there, including Plum?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is ironic about Kitty's insistence that "all girls are beautiful" (241)?

2. How does the author employ foreshadowing within the passage when Kitty calls Plum at home and asks her to come to Austen Media?

3. In what way is Plum already familiar with Marlowe before she meets her at Cafe Rose?

4. What is the story behind Marlowe's tattoo that reads, "Women don't want to be me, men don't want to fuck me" (133)?

5. Describe the arc of Plum's writing career over the course of the novel.

6. Discuss Plum's comments about her ability to be "like the lilac negligee woman" (234) from the lingerie ads or like Leeta.

7. What personal advice does Julia offer to Plum during their conversation in Plum's bedroom and how does Plum react?

8. How is the theme of passing depicted within Julia's experiences at Austen Media?

9. Who does Plum call when Verena tells Plum to call anyone who will notice she is missing once she moves into The Calliope House? What do her choices reveal about her life prior to connecting with the women of The Calliope House?

10. How is allusion used within the scene when Sana and Plum discuss Plum's fears that her longing for Alicia will return?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How is the topic of discovery treated within the novel and how does its treatment relate to the book's repeated allusions to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the author's use of humor alongside humanist messages within the novel.

Essay Topic 3

William Faulkner once famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of the human heart in conflict with itself. Explain how the theme of Human versus Self is demonstrated within Sarai Walker's novel Dietland. Create a decisive, arguable claim and prove it with quotes from the book.

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