Part I, Chapter One- GHETTO NERD AT THE END OF THE WORLD 1974-1987

• There is a curse called the fuku that seemed to have something to do with dictator-for-life Rafael Leonidas
Trujillo Molina.

• If anyone even thought something bad about Trujillo something horrible would happen.

• The story in the novel is a fuku story, and the narrator wonders if the novel isn't a counterspell known as zafa.

• The hero of the story, Oscar, has a brief period of time when he is seven that he has a lot of luck with females.

• He even had two girlfriends at one time for awhile until Maritza made Oscar break up with Olga.

• Shortly after that, Maritza dumped Oscar.

• Seemingly bad love karma hit Oscar and his former girlfriends.

• Olga and Oscar gain weight and become ugly; Maritza begins to date older men who slap her around.

• Oscar attends an all-boy Catholic high school and spends his adolescence without a girlfriend.

• Oscar has always been a young nerd who read a lot, but by high school, his nerdiness was absolute.

• Oscar's sister Lola, who had turned into a tough long-distance runner, tells Oscar he needs to start changing or he
will never have a girlfriend.

• Lola's girlfriends ignore Oscar and treat him as if he isn't male.

• He dreams about the girls and makes up fantasies about rescuing them.

• Even his friends, who are nerds as well, manage to get girlfriends and look down on Oscar.

• Oscar spends one summer in Santo Domingo with his sister at his abuela's home.

• Unlike his mother, Nena Inca allows Oscar to write as much as he wishes; a habit he continues when he returns
home.

• Oscar begins sending out applications to colleges, and he falls in love with a girl in his SAT prep class.

• Ana is a beautiful girl, whose ex-boyfriend was 24 when she started dating him at age 13.

• Oscar and Ana begin spending time together; Ana even comes to his house to ask him to go to a movie with her.

• Oscar is accepted to Rutgers New Brunswick, and Ana is on her way to Penn State.

• Manny, Ana's ex-boyfriend returns from the army, and she starts seeing him again.

• The time that Oscar spends with Ana dwindles to nothing.

• Even though Manny mistreats Ana and is probably cheating on her, she loves him and doesn't want to leave him.

• College isn't much better for Oscar; the white kids see his black skin and treat him with inhuman cheeriness.
• The other Dominicans don't believe he is one of them.

• He has no luck with girls and joins the resident geek organization, RU Gamers.

Part I, Chapter Two WILDWOOD 1982-1985

• Lola narrates Chapter 2 and tells how her mother learned that she had breast cancer when Lola is twelve.

• Everything changes at that point: Lola's mother has surgery, which causes her to have difficulty lifting her arm
over her head for the rest of her life.

• Belicia's hair starts to fall out, and she pulls the rest out and puts it in a plastic bag.

• Lola and Oscar were scared of their mother because she would always yell at them, hit them, and tell them how
worthless they are.

• Lola's relationship with her mother deteriorates.

• When her mother becomes sick, Lola sees it as her chance to get out from under her mother's thumb.

• Until her mother's sickness, Lola had been a dutiful daughter always tending to the house and making sure Oscar
was fed and everything ran well when Belicia was at work.

• Lola begins to feel a wildness build inside her with her mother's illness; her first act of defiance is to chop off her
hair.

• When Lola begins staying out late, her mother locks her out of the house, but Oscar lets her in his window.

• One day Lola disappears and runs off with 19-year-old Aldo and goes to live with him and his 74-year-old father.

• When Lola meets Oscar, her mother shows up and drags Lola back home and then sends her off to Santo
Domingo to stay with her grandmother.

• There, Lola attends a private school where she runs on the track team and the other girls talk about her behind
her back.

• Lola dates a nice boy named Max Sanchez and they spend their time doing inexpensive things like walking along
the Malecon.

• During Lola's stay at her grandmother's she learns that her grandmother and Belicia did not get along when
Belicia was a girl.

• They look at photos Lola has never seen before of her mother when she was young.

Part I, Chapter Three-THE HEARTBREAKS OF BELICIA CABRAL

• Hypatia Belicia Cabral is a tall girl with dark skin, who has a longing for elsewhere.

• From 1951 on, Beli lives with her aunt in Bani, and they run a bakery together.

• Before that time she had lived with a foster family since her parents and sisters had died.
• Beli has a huge burn on her back from her Lost Years.

• She and her aunt live the good life: they attend church twice weekly and on Fridays stroll through the park.

• Although Beli should have been glad for her good life--her aunt didn't beat her, spoiled her, bought her flashy
clothes, and paid her a little for working in the bakery--she is not content.

• Her life irks her and she wants something - anything - else.

• Part of her longing is due to the fact that her generation has always lived under Trujillo and were never able to
travel.

• Beli has her feet firmly planted toward the future, while her aunt tries to glorify the past when Bani's father was
a doctor and her mother a nurse.

• When Beli is 13, La Inca gets her a scholarship to attend El Redentor, one of the best schools in Bani.

• Although Beli's heritage is upper-class, her Lost Years and the years with her aunt have not prepared her to fit in
at the school.

• Beli stands out at the school, and she makes no effort to fit in.

• She is the lowest of low along with a boy with an iron lung who attends the school and a Chinese girl.

• Because Beli had no education during her Lost Years, she isn't prepared for the academics and her grades are
poor.

• No one in Beli's barrio realizes how much she hates school.

• She tells stories about how wonderful school is and that she has a boyfriend named Jack Pujols.

• She does learn to speak properly and taunts the young girl who cleans with her mother at her aunt's home.

Part I, Chapter Three, Numero Uno - The Gangster We’re All Looking For

• Jack Pujos is the most popular boy in school and has one of the whitest complexions in the school.

• Beli attempts to get him to notice her by literally running into him.

• The summer of her sophomore year of high school, Beli becomes a beautiful woman.

• She is embarrassed at first, and then feels the power she has over men.

• Again she throws herself at Jack, but he ignores her until October when he breaks up with his girlfriend.

• Then, he stops her in the hall and tells her that she is beautiful, and he is soon having sex with her in a closet.

• They sneak around for a month until they are caught.

• Jack claims it is all Beli’s fault; she seduced him.

• Beli insists she did nothing; she had believed his promises of marriage after they finished high school.
• Jack is sent to military school, and Beli is expelled.

• La Inca wants Beli to attend another school, but Beli rebells and gets a job as a waitress.

• A new waitress convinces Beli to forget Jack, and they go to a nightclub together.

• There, Beli meets the Gangster, who offers to buy her a drink.

• When he touches her, she attacks him.

• La Inca is infuriated when Beli gets home late, but doesn’t beat her.

• The next time Beli goes to the club, she asks the Gangster to dance with her.

• The Gangster works for Trujillo, and he is a man who has dealt in a lot of criminal activity.

• At the time he meets Beli, he is recovering from having to leave Cuba on the last plane out after the uprising.

• The Gangster courts Beli and treats her well; he promises to buy her homes in Miami and Havana.

• La Inca believes that Beli is cursed, and her bosses fire her.

• The Gangster gets Beli her job back, but after receiving the silent treatment at work, she doesn’t return.

• The Gangster disappears frequently and is gone for days and weeks at a time.

• He takes Beli on a trip to Samana that is interrupted when a policeman tells him he needed in the Palacio.

• The Gangster promises to send a car for Beli, but it never comes.

• Eventually, Beli finds a ride back to La Inca’s house.

• Back home, La Inca tells Beli that she is pregnant.

Part I, Chapter Three, Revelation - The Last Days of the Republic

• Beli is pregnant, and she believes this will lead to the life she has always wanted.

• The Gangster never told Beli that he was married—married to Trujillo’s sister.

• The Gangster’s wife has two police officers bring Beli to speak to her in the park.

• Soy Trujilla tells Beli that she is going to be taken to get an abortion.

• When the officers try to drag her into a car, Jose and Juan hear her and come to her rescue.

• Beli returns home, but goes back outside when a neighbor says that the Gangster is there.

• It isn’t the Gangster, but the police again.

• The police drive Beli to the country, beating her as they drive.

• Then they stop and drag Beli into a cane field, where they further beat her with a nightstick.
• While Beli lies in the cane, a mongoose comes to her telling her to get up and that she will have a son and a
daughter.

• The mongoose leads her out of the cane.

• She comes to the road, just as a truck full of musicians drives by.

• A woman who looks like the mongoose, tells the musicians they will rescue Beli, even though Beli tells them
Trujillo beat her.

• In Bani, the community is divided about Beli’s attack.

• Some say she is cursed, while others say she is fortunate because she survived.

• Beli mourns her baby and her injuries.

• When she wakes one night and hears funeral songs, she believes she has died, but it is Trujillo who has been
shot.

• Even with Trujillo dead, Beli is still in danger.

• La Inca sees her dead husband in a dream while she is praying and fasting, and she believes he tells her to send
Beli to New York.

• La Inca is not sure about sending Beli, until the police start appearing in the neighborhood again.

• Beli pays little attention as her aunt prepares for Beli’s trip.

• Beli sees the Gangster once, and he tells her they were betrayed, but he doesn’t share her grief for the dead
baby.

• On the plane, Beli does not realize her seat mate is the man she will marry and who will be the father of her
children.

Part I, Chapter Four SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION 1988-1992

• When Yunior is out walking home alone on foot at 2 a.m., he is jumped and beaten.

• Fortunately a good Samaritan comes by.

• Even though Yunior has a girlfriend, it is Lola who cares for him and stays with him at night.

• He and Lola have known one another since the pre-freshman weekend, and they had a brief affair their
sophomore year.

• So when Oscar gets depressed and tries to kill himself, Yunior volunteers to be his roommate their junior year.

• Lola is in Madrid that year, and Yunior want to help out; besides if he doesn't stay with Oscar, he might have to
move back home or live on the street.

• With his family background, Yunior should have known that Oscar is cursed.
• The first month they are roommates, Yunior doesn't pay much attention to Oscar.

• Although Yunior does try to help Oscar with his problem attracting girls, Oscar doesn't pay much attention to
Yunior's advice.

• When Yunior's girlfriend finds out that he has been cheating on her, he has some spare time and decides to work
on Oscar.

• He begins forcing Oscar to run four days a week.

• Finally, Oscar stops on the street and refuses to run anymore.

• They get into a shoving match, and Yunior pushes Oscar into a wall hard.

• Lola calls, but Yunior is sick of the whole situation; he swears and she hangs up on him.

• After that, Yunior quits trying to help Oscar.

• Oscar falls in love with a beautiful girl named Jenni; a girl who had made fun of Yunior.

• They spend time together, even attending a few movies, until Jenni breaks up with him.

• When Oscar walks in upon Jenni and her new punk making love, he goes berserk and starts tearing up her room.

• Someone tells Yunior that his roommate is going insane, and Yunior has to put Oscar in a headlock to get him to
quit.

• Their last night as roommates, Oscar shares liquid crack with Yunior.

• Although he should have stayed with Oscar, Yunior leaves.

• Oscar drunkenly makes his way to the train station and onto a bridge 75 feet above the ground.

• He hears the 4:12 express, closes his eyes, and opens them and sees what he calls a Golden Mongoose.

• Oscar throws himself into the darkness, and he lands on the divider, which isn't concrete, but dirt and shrubs.

• He wakes with two broken legs and a separated shoulder; Lola comes from Madrid to be with him.

• Four days later Oscar goes home, and Yunior continues on with his life.

• When Yunior visits Oscar, he sees Lola and wishes he could kiss her.

• Although Yunior hadn't planned on it, he rooms with Oscar their last semester.

• Yunior learns that Oscar has been driving after dark, falling asleep, and then just waking up in time to save
himself.