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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. Who is like the mother hen in Lina's women's discussion group?

2. In which country did Taddeo's mother work and live as a young woman outside of the U.S.?

3. What is one of Lina's favorite movies?

4. Which niece of Maggie's is born when she is a sophomore in high school?

5. Which woman in Lina's discussion group has a very good-looking boyfriend?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Lina sometimes find herself asking Ed to try to make up for her husband's emotional and physical detachment?

2. In the Prologue, what is Taddeo horrified to hear her own mother endured every day for a time as a young woman in Italy?

3. Why do Sloane and Richard decide to start their own restaurant in Newport?

4. In Part I, where do Lina and Aidan frequently meet to fool around?

5. How does Sloane react when she and Richard and Karin have their first threesome?

6. What does Aaron Knodel's defense lawyer ask Maggie about in Part I on the stand that the state's prosecution lawyer objects to?

7. What does Mr. Knodel tell Maggie about what happened to her in Hawaii?

8. What is Lina most frustrated about in her marriage with Ed?

9. In Part I, what does 15 year-old Lina want more than anything else?

10. What does Lina tell her support group that she thinks created her emotional loneliness?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay analyzing the decision-making process that leads Sloane and her husband, Richard, to engage in their first group sexual experience with their employee, Karin. How does Sloane feel about the act afterwards?

Essay Topic 2

In the Prologue, Taddeo writes that she tells Maggie's story, in particular, through Maggie's eyes. Taddeo keeps her focus and point-of-view narrowly on Lina and Sloane, as well, telling their stories almost entirely from their own perspectives. Write an essay analyzing Taddeo's decision to tell each woman's stories almost entirely from their own points of view. How do you think this decision both strengthens and weakens this book?

Essay Topic 3

Taddeo writes that some of her mother's dying advice to her is to never let other people see that she is happy - especially other women. Write an essay analyzing how Taddeo's mother's advice seems to relate to the lives of each of the three women her book focuses on - Maggie, Lina, and Sloane.

(see the answer keys)

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