The home
The home is one of the most important imageries of the novel, because the home life is the private world that Minisha doesn't really get to share with other kids at school. The imagery shows what she understands about her life that her teachers, friends (or lack thereof), and community doesn't know. They don't know the disrepair of the home, or the way the father depends on girlfriends who don't have their best interest in mind. The home is the domain of Minisha's private heartache and deep emotional longing. She often wonders about the worth of her life in the home.
School and society
Compared to the difficulties of home, one might expect Minisha to find her respite in school, but actually, school and community are even more complicated for Minisha. She endures a season of change and adaptation, going from a white community to a Black community where she is treated as an outsider. She doesn't know anything about the culture except that when she tries to fit in, she suffers rejection. She doesn't understand the deep complexities of race in America; just that she isn't accepted by others.
Sport and success
When she gets a chance to engage her body in a difficult task, she finds a new kind of life. The pain of practicing quickly leads to the catharsis she longed for in other areas of life. This imagery is salvific, because it brings her out of a deep despair. Tangibly, the imagery provides a venue for new friendships, and it has lanes and objectives that are clear and orderly. Abstractly, the imagery gives her an outlet to pursue success.
Money
The imagery of money is perhaps the most subtle of the novel, because Minisha doesn't see the world in terms of value and money until she tries to change her situation and finds that the reason for her life's frustrations has to do with her family's poverty (perhaps she is oversimplifying here, but this is how she sees it). This leads her to set goals and plans for a future that depend on wealth and winning big. Through her perception of money and economy, we see her desperation and desire to prove her worth.
