67 pages • 2 hours read
Jennifer BrownA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Part 1, Chapters 1-2
Part 1, Chapters 3-4
Part 1, Chapter 5
Part 2, Chapters 6-7
Part 2, Chapters 8-9
Part 2, Chapters 10-11
Part 2, Chapters 12-13
Part 2, Chapters 14-15
Part 3, Chapters 16-17
Part 3, Chapters 18-19
Part 3, Chapters 20-21
Part 3, Chapters 22-23
Part 3, Chapters 24-25
Part 3, Chapters 26-27
Part 3, Chapters 28-29
Part 3, Chapters 30-31
Part 3, Chapters 32-33
Part 3, Chapters 34-35
Part 3, Chapters 36-37
Part 3, Chapters 38-39
Part 3, Chapters 40-41
Part 3, Chapters 42-43
Part 4, Chapter 44
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Part 3 resumes the format of introducing chapters with newspaper articles about the shooting. It opens with a news story about victim Max Hills, revealing that he and Nick had actually been friendly. Max’s mother claims a rift occurred due to a disagreement over Max letting Nick borrow his truck.
Back in present time, Valerie says, “Ginny Baker never came back to class—at least not the classes she had with me. And Tennille never looked me in the eye. And Stacey and I never sat together at lunch,” showing some people cannot move on from a tragedy at the same speed or in the same fashion as others (212).
Valerie continues in isolation, eating alone, existing by herself. Before, she considered herself an outcast, but with friends who were also outsiders. Now, after the shooting, she muses, “Being a true outcast, without even other outcast friends, is tough” (213).To cope, she uses her sketchbook, reviewing for the reader’s benefit different pictures of her classmates and school officials:
During the day I had drawn a line of P.E. students with faces dominated by enormous gaping holes for mouths, heading out to the track. A teacher—the Spanish teacher, Señor Ruiz—staring out over a staircase full of bustling students, his face blank, flat, an empty o.