She is a graduate of the University of Cape Town, where she received a BA in English literature and film and media production, and she uses those skills to write stories, pitch media and watch movies.
Musikavanhu applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, Ride or Die, and reported the following:
On page 69 of Ride or Die, the novel’s protagonist, Loli, is texting her best friends, Ryan and Cairo about the first ‘mission’ she's accomplished in the game of dares she’s started with a mysterious character whom she met anonymously at a party (also known as. “X”). She lets them know she’s retrieved her next letter from him but discloses that it’s not as revealing as they would like it to be. It’s made clear to the reader that Loli has decided to keep the contents of the letter to herself rather than share the intimate details of it with her friends, as it seems like the "right thing" for her to do.Visit Gail-Agnes Musikavanhu's website.
While this is a fun test, flipping to page 69 of Ride or Die would not give you an accurate idea of the whole work. Most of the page is back and forth text dialogue, which is not representative of the book as a whole, and the actual amount of words on the page are few, limiting the amount that a browser would take away while perusing.
The page is not entirely useless though. Through the back and forth banter, you get a glimpse into the dynamic of Loli’s friend group and a little bit of insight into Loli’s character. “Good for him,” they say, when they find out that X’s letter wasn’t very revealing. “Clearly he knows [the mystery] is the only thing keeping you interested.”
Loli shrugs off their playful teasing but a browser would learn an important aspect of her character: she is self interested and self motivated – and she loves a good mystery.
A browser might glean a little more from the novel if they were to glance at the opposite page – page 68 – as it furthers one of the central plot points of the story: Loli’s best friend, Ryan Pope, is hiding something. She asks him an innocent, semi-rhetorical question about whether he can relate to having a crush and he replies with one word. “Sure”.I frowned. Ryan rarely ever sent one-word answers. I watched the screen waiting for him to type something else but he didn’t. Instead, he sent a message to our Cake Tier group chat with Cairo.While the above quote introduces the reader to a significant plot point in the novel, it is still not an accurate representation of the novel as a whole. Ride or Die is a zippy, fast paced, action filled story, which unfortunately can’t be conveyed through a glance at this text exchange in the beginning of the book.
Q&A with Gail-Agnes Musikavanhu.
--Marshal Zeringue
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