The Collected Regrets of Clover: Full-Book Quiz with Answer Key
Quiz: Plot and Sequence (Questions 1–8)
1. What event does Clover witness at age five in Chapter 1?
- A) Her kindergarten teacher dying while reading Peter Rabbit to the class
- B) Her parents' boating accident on the Yangtze River
- C) Her grandfather's stroke in his Columbia office
- D) A car accident on Canal Street
2. How many deaths has Clover witnessed by the time Guillermo dies in Chapter 2?
- A) 96
- B) 97
- C) 98
- D) 99
3. Short answer: What is Guillermo's final confession, recorded in Clover's CONFESSIONS notebook?
4. Where does Clover first meet Sebastian?
- A) At a death café in the basement of the New York Public Library
- B) At a mahjong game with Leo
- C) At Claudia's townhouse on West Eighty-Fourth Street
- D) At a yoga class with Sylvie
5. What does Clover discover about the woman she privately called "Julia" in Chapter 36?
- A) Her real name is Bridget, and she is in an open relationship with her husband Peter
- B) She is Sylvie's sister from Chicago
- C) She is also a death doula
- D) She is married to the man Clover called "Reuben"
6. Short answer: What do Clover and Sebastian find when they drive to the address in Lincolnville, Maine, in Chapter 41?
7. What does Claudia request for her ashes?
- A) They should be scattered off the cliffs of Bonifacio in Corsica
- B) They should be buried in her garden beside her husband
- C) They should be kept in a jar on Sebastian's mantel
- D) They should be scattered in Central Park near the dog run
8. What does Leo leave Clover after his death?
- A) His bar cart and mahjong set
- B) His rent-controlled apartment
- C) His collection of photographs
- D) His cello
Quiz: Character Motivation (Questions 9–13)
9. Short answer: Why does Clover become a death doula?
10. Why does Clover initially reject Sylvie's friendship?
- A) She fears rejection after a similar experience with Angela, an Australian neighbor
- B) She dislikes Sylvie's career as an art historian
- C) She is too busy with her death-doula work
- D) Leo warned her not to trust Sylvie
11. Why does Sebastian attend death cafés?
- A) Because his grandmother is dying and he has an intense fear of death
- B) To sell financial products to grieving families
- C) To meet romantic partners who share his interests
- D) Because his therapist requires him to attend
12. Short answer: Why does Clover agree to keep visiting Claudia after the photography pretense is exposed?
13. Why does Clover write her own regrets in the REGRETS notebook in Chapter 48?
- A) She realizes she has been existing out of habit and wants a chance to change
- B) She wants to impress Hugo with her self-awareness
- C) Sylvie challenges her to do it as a friendship test
- D) She is following a dying client's final advice
Quiz: Theme and Symbol (Questions 14–17)
14. Short answer: What do Clover's three notebooks (CONFESSIONS, REGRETS, ADVICE) symbolize over the course of the novel?
15. What does the matchstick metaphor in Chapter 9 represent?
- A) The unpredictable length of a human life
- B) The warmth and comfort of family
- C) The destructive power of anger
- D) The fleeting brightness of youth
16. What does the hummingbird symbolize in the novel?
- A) Patience and careful observation, as taught by Grandpa
- B) Speed and the urgency of living
- C) The fragility of life
- D) Freedom and the desire to travel
17. Short answer: What does Claudia's posthumous gift of a camera and lenses to Clover represent?
Quiz: Synthesis (Questions 18–20)
18. Short answer: How does the novel use the theme of "being seen" to connect Claudia, Hugo, and Clover?
19. Short answer: Compare Clover's relationship with Leo to her relationship with Grandpa. How does Leo's death help Clover process Grandpa's death?
20. Short answer: What does the epilogue's image of Claudia's ashes joining Hugo's in Corsica suggest about the novel's view of regret and second chances?
Answer Key
1. A. Clover's kindergarten teacher, Mr. Hyland, dies mid-story while reading Peter Rabbit (Chapter 1). The other options involve deaths that occur later or to other characters.
2. B. Guillermo's death brings Clover's tally to ninety-seven (Chapter 2). Abigail's death later becomes her ninety-eighth (Chapter 10).
3. Guillermo confesses that he accidentally killed his sister's hamster when he was eleven years old (Chapter 2).
4. A. Clover first meets Sebastian at the death café in the New York Public Library basement (Chapter 6). He arrives late, mid-phone call.
5. A. In Chapter 36, Clover sees the woman she called "Julia" kiss Sylvie. Sylvie later clarifies the woman is Bridget, who has an open relationship with her husband Peter (confirmed in Chapter 48).
6. They find Hugo's grandson, who tells them the elder Hugo Beaufort died a couple of months earlier. The grandson explains that his grandfather had spoken of an American photographer named Claudia (Chapter 41).
7. A. Claudia chooses cremation and requests her ashes be scattered off the cliffs of Bonifacio in Corsica (Chapter 27). Hugo's grandfather made the same request, and Clover carries Claudia's ashes there in the epilogue.
8. A. Leo leaves Clover his bar cart and mahjong set (Chapter 52). He donates his remaining money and possessions to a community center in Harlem.
9. Clover became a death doula because her grief felt at home among others grieving. She was in Cambodia when her grandfather died alone, and she wanted to be present for others in their final moments (Chapters 13, 39, 50).
10. A. Clover recalls Angela, an Australian woman who lived in the second-floor apartment ten years earlier. After learning about Clover's work with dying people, Angela became distant and barely spoke to her (Chapter 8).
11. A. Sebastian admits to an intense fear of death at the first death café (Chapter 6). In Chapter 12, he explains that his grandmother is dying, which is why he attends death cafés.
12. Claudia reveals she knows she is dying and accepts Clover as a death doula, asking her to continue visiting. Clover agrees because Claudia wants her there, and Clover wants to help Claudia resolve her regrets (Chapter 24).
13. A. After Claudia's death, Clover writes her own regrets—not taking chances, closing off her heart, and existing out of habit—and feels hope because her regrets are written in pencil, giving her a chance to change (Chapter 48).
14. The notebooks represent Clover's way of integrating the wisdom of the dying into her own life. They also become a record of her most meaningful encounters, and eventually a mirror for her own regrets and desire for change (Chapter 48).
15. A. Grandpa uses matches to explain that bodies age and stop working, and that lives burn for unpredictable lengths (Chapter 9). Clover later imagines passersby as partially burned matches.
16. A. Grandpa teaches Clover to observe hummingbirds patiently, noting they beat their wings up to eighty times a second (Chapter 14). The hummingbird becomes a symbol of patience and attentive observation, and reappears as excitement in the final chapter.
17. Claudia's gift represents her belief in Clover's way of seeing the world and encourages Clover to share that vision with others. It symbolizes new beginnings, living out loud, and Claudia's legacy of curiosity and adventure (Chapter 54).
18. Claudia teaches Clover that photography is about patience and making people feel seen (Chapter 24). Hugo demonstrates this by remembering small details about Clover, like her black coffee preference (Chapter 50). Clover finally feels truly seen by Hugo, which parallels the connection Claudia lost with Hugo's grandfather.
19. Both Leo and Grandpa are older male figures who offer Clover wisdom and unconditional love. Leo becomes a surrogate grandfather, and his death—with Clover present—allows her to experience a peaceful deathbed scene. Leo's final words, "the secret to a beautiful death is living a beautiful life," and his request that Clover promise to let herself live, help her process Grandpa's death and move forward (Chapter 51).
20. The epilogue suggests that even missed connections can find resolution, and that regret can be transformed into hope and new beginnings. Clover reflects that if Claudia and Hugo had reunited in life, the Hugo beside her would not exist, and she would not have had her three months of travel. The novel concludes that mystery is essential to magic, and that understanding everything would eliminate growth (Epilogue).
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