48 pages • 1 hour read
Ally CarterI'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Over the next couple of weeks, Cammie exchanges notes with Josh through the gazebo stone. Finally, he asks if she can go to the movies on Friday, which thrills Cammie until Mr. Solomon reminds them the career fair is the same evening. The night of the fair, Bex wants Cammie to go on her date, but Liz says she has to cancel because the fare flier says this night is how the Gallagher Girls “decide how they will become the Gallagher Women of tomorrow” (170). Cammie decides to go. On her way out, she encounters a man from Interpol who gives her a business card. When he leaves, Cammie sneaks out of the school, losing the card as she changes clothes.
Chapter 17 Summary
Changing in the dark tunnel turns out to be more difficult than Cammie thought, and she’s sure she looks terrible. When she meets up with Josh, he says she looks amazing. For the first time in a long time, Cammie forgets about how plain she feels beside her mom and friends and realizes that she “didn't want to disappear” (176). Turns out, they missed the movie, so they go for burgers instead and are soon descended upon by a group of people from Josh’s school. An attractive girl sits next to Josh, making Cammie jealous, and a boy named Dillon invites Josh to join the group going to moon the Gallagher Academy.
Annoyed, Josh tosses money on the table, takes Cammie’s hand, and leaves the restaurant. They walk to the gazebo, still holding hands. Josh apologizes for his friends and shrugs off Cammie’s inquiries about the pretty girl. He leans closer to Cammie, and she feels light-headed as if “the whole world was a merry-go-round” (184). They kiss, which is warm and sweet, but she refuses to provide more details because the feelings are private and the report will likely be read by a bunch of spies at different organizations, as well as her mom.
Chapter 18 Summary
At lunch one day, Liz reminds Cammie about the huge project that’s due Wednesday and 30% of their midterm grade. Cammie doesn’t have time to work on it because she has plans with Josh. When Liz asks when she’s going to do it, Cammie doesn’t know because she’s been “taking life one day, one outfit, one date at a time” (187). Cammie goes to the library to sneak out of school, only to find Mr. Solomon there. He seems suspicious until Cammie’s mom arrives, saying she’s been looking for Cammie.
Her mom wants to do something that night, and Cammie can’t find a delicate way to say no because she can’t tell her mom about Josh. Macey arrives and says Cammie’s going to help with chemistry homework. Cammie’s mom looks sad but leaves, and Macey tells Cammie she won’t lie to her mom like that again. Before Macey leaves, she tells Cammie she hopes Josh is worth it because Macey doesn’t know “what's so special about him that you'd risk losing what you've got” (191). To Cammie, Josh is special because he’s so normal, something she doesn’t think Macey can understand.
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
In these chapters, Cammie starts to want the “normal” life she pretends to have with Josh more than the life she knows as a spy. Josh makes Cammie feel normal, which she didn’t realize she craved until she felt that way. Her desires to be cared for and to have her family whole again feel fulfilled around him, and she clings to the fantasy as long as she can. Her mom and dad’s time together was cut short, and she wants to take every moment she can with Josh because part of her realizes it can’t last forever. Leaving the fair early and losing the card from Interpol symbolize Cammie trying to shed her spy skin in favor of the “normal” teenage girl skin beneath.
Chapter 17 is the first roadblock in Cammie’s attempt to live in both worlds. Dillon and the other kids have a low opinion of the Gallagher Academy because they believe the school’s rich-girl cover story and think the girls who attend are snobs. Their attitude mirrors how Cammie and her friends treated Macey when they thought she was only stuck-up, but unlike Cammie, Bex, and Liz, the kids in town don’t come to see there’s more to the school. Dillon’s attitude foreshadows how Cammie ultimately tells Josh she goes to the Gallagher Academy and Josh’s negative reaction before he learns the truth about the school.
