51 pages • 1 hour read
Gordon KormanJake, Reinvented
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2003A 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 12-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary
From his interactions with Todd and Jake, Rick can tell that neither of them knows who Didi’s real boyfriend is. He wonders if she even knows.
Nelson prepares to beat up Todd after finding out that Todd has been hooking up with Melissa. Just as Nelson is about to smash Todd with his fist, Rick tries to tackle Nelson. Nelson is so big and strong that Rick’s tackle barely affects him, but it does buy enough time for Todd to come up with a lie to save himself. Over Rick’s protests, Todd tells Nelson that Jake is the one who has been hooking up with Melissa. Rick tries to tell Nelson that Jake wouldn’t do something like that, but Nelson doesn’t believe him. Nelson vows to hurt Jake at the party that night.
After Nelson storms off, Rick implores Todd to retract what he did: sending Nelson after Jake. Todd refuses, calling Jake a “phony” and saying that it’s not his problem what Nelson does to Jake. In response, Rick threatens to tell Nelson the truth: that Todd is the one hooking up with Melissa. By siding with Jake against Todd—the most popular student at their school—Rick knows that he may soon lose his popularity and become an outcast.
Rick rushes to Jake’s house to warn him about Nelson, only to see that Jake is preparing for the biggest party yet, which will include at least four kegs of beer. Despite Rick’s concerns, Jake refuses to call off the party, saying that he must face Todd at some point, so it might as well be now. Jake says that he will be careful about Nelson, but he is too absorbed with thoughts of Didi to give the threat any real consideration.
Jake asks Rick if he is coming to the party. Rick says yes, but in hindsight he wonders if he should have said no to stress the need for Jake to call off the party. Rick speculates that even Jake must have known that something terrible was going to happen.
Chapter 13 Summary
The party is the wildest and most crowded yet, with many college students attending alongside the high schoolers. The attendees drink more alcohol than ever, and Rick speculates that they must somehow know that this will be Jake’s final Friday night party. Even Didi is drunk, which is unusual for her. She and Jake argue about whether she will break up with Todd. Jennifer, also somewhat drunk, flirts with Rick and pulls him onto the dance floor with her.
Someone crashes a motorcycle through Jake’s house’s front door. Feeling like the only responsible one around, Rick convinces Jennifer to help him clean up the motorcycle’s leaking gasoline. They wipe up the gas puddle with paper towels and dispose of the towels in the wading pools of water surrounding the beer kegs.
Some of the gasoline gets on Rick’s and Jennifer’s clothing, so they go to the bathroom to clean up. Rick is stunned when Jennifer takes off her sweater to clean it, leaving her in only a bra. Suddenly, they are kissing each other on the floor of the bathroom, and Jennifer asks Rick what took him so long to make a move.
As they kiss, Jennifer spots one of Jake’s discarded t-shirts from his time as a mathlete. She tells Rick that Jake’s nerdiness was the reason that Didi never seriously considered dating him when he was her math tutor. Didi appreciated that she could be herself in front of Jake, but she couldn’t have him ruining her perfect, popular reputation. Rick realizes that Didi is more than a girlfriend for Jake: Didi instead represents the “ultimate affirmation” that he can be accepted by the peers that used to tease him mercilessly for being too smart.
Repulsed by Jennifer’s total lack of sympathy for Jake, Rick breaks off their hookup and leaves the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 14 Summary
Todd arrives at the party and unplugs the music so that he can have his showdown with Jake in front of a crowd. Jake seems unperturbed with Didi by his side, and he flashes Todd his Jake smile. Rick can’t help but admire Jake in this moment. Rick thinks of him not as Jacob Garrett but as “Jake, reinvented” (119).
Todd’s next words destroy Jake’s reputation with his classmates, revealing that Jake used to be a “nerdy little shrimp” who got beat up by the kids at his previous school (119). The partiers now view Jake’s cool-guy persona as a front—a lie—with only Rick and Marty Rapaport on Jake’s side. Just as Didi begins edging away from Jake, Nelson bursts into the house, full of rage for Melissa’s perceived cheating with Jake.
Rick yells for Jake to run but gets punched in the face by Todd. At the same time, three football players emerge from the basement with Dipsy’s pants tied to a huge firework, preparing to fire it out the front door. Nelson charges Jake, grabs him by the throat, and Jake’s eyes begin to bulge as he starts suffocating. Didi comes up behind Nelson and smashes a champagne bottle over his head, knocking him unconscious.
Just then, the firework goes off, missing the front door and instead exploding inside the house, where it ignites the gasoline inside the wading pools around the beer kegs. As the pools melt, burning gasoline starts to spread over the floor, setting of a stampede as the partiers flee Jake’s house in a panic. Jake is so worried about Didi’s safety that Rick has to drag him out of the burning and smoking house.
On Jake’s front lawn, Rick sees that Mrs. Appleford has already called the police and fire department, who are starting to arrive. Everyone gapes in horror as the cops drag the unconscious Nelson out of the burning building, his hair covered in blood.
After calling an ambulance for Nelson, the cops demand that someone tell them who attacked him and put his life in danger. All the partiers know that Didi is responsible, but no one wants to be seen as a rat by telling the cops. Fearing that Didi will get in trouble, Jake tells the police that he was the one who attacked Nelson. Nobody, including Didi, rebuts Jake’s false confession.
Chapters 12-14 Analysis
As this section opens, the confusion surrounding the Todd-Didi-Jake love triangle reinforces the difficulty of forming meaningful relationships in a culture obsessed with social status. Didi is so caught up in what other people might think that she doesn’t appear able to access her deeper thoughts and desires, representing the divorce of intuition from consumption in a materialistic society. This renders it impossible for her to decide between her two suitors.
Todd’s decision to send Nelson after Jake once again underlines his selfishness and disregard for consequences. His defense of that decision—in which he accuses Jake of being a “phony”—highlights the theme of Appearance Versus Substance by provoking questions about whether Todd or Jake is the more authentic person. Todd believes that Jake is a phony for hiding his nerdiness behind a cool-guy mask, but Todd himself is a phony for pretending to care for Didi while cheating on her with Melissa. Rick’s choice to side with Jake suggests that he sees both Todd and Jake as flawed but believes that Jake’s pursuit of a pure, authentic dream somewhat redeems his phony exterior. Rick’s realization this his choice will destroy his popularity shows continued development in his character. He has realized that there are more important things than social status.
As Jake’s final party approaches, Nelson’s demonstration of his immense strength and Rick’s suspicion that something terrible will happen combine to build tension around the upcoming showdown between Todd and Jake, while foreshadowing that their confrontation will end in disaster. The party itself is the peak of High School Hedonism, and the increased presence of alcohol underlines the idea that things are now completely out of control. This is no longer harmless celebration; this is destructive and dangerous chaos.
Amid the party background, the novel continues to explore Rick and Jennifer’s nuanced and shifting relationship. Jennifer distinguishes herself from the other partiers by helping Rick clean up the gasoline mess, hinting that she has a sense of responsibility that the others lack. The gasoline mess resembles an oil spill, major environmental and socio-economic disasters often caused by large corporations and affecting marginalized communities; the gasoline spill is therefore a wider critique of the harms of selfish and hedonistic behavior.
The speed with which the other partygoers turn against Jake after Todd’s revelation that he used to be nerdy underlines their fickleness and concern for popularity and appearances. Furthermore, while Didi’s attack on Nelson—her one selfless act in the novel—reveals that she really does have feelings for Jake, the fact that she abandons that love to preserve her own social status at Jake’s expense underscores the tragic elements of the novel.
Jennifer’s words in the bathroom about Jake allow Rick to fully grasp Jake’s version of The American Dream. Bullied by classmates and dismissed by a beautiful girl, Jake made Didi the epitome of his quest for self-improvement and happiness. In Jake’s mind, Didi, happiness, and acceptance are inseparable. While Rick admires Jake’s dream for embodying a sense of purity, he also sees how the dream has warped Jake’s perceptions, leading him to objectify Didi while ignoring her flaws. Jake’s misguided confession to cover for Didi stems from this same warped perception.
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