59 pages • 1 hour read
Jeneva RoseOne of Us Is Dead
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A 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 21-37Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “Olivia”
Olivia goes to Book Club at Glow, wearing a dress that covers the bruise she received last night. She wonders why Dean reacted so strongly. When she gets to the salon, she criticizes its relative disarray before learning of the attack.
Shannon arrives and is aggressively snide with Karen. Crystal apologizes for Bryce’s behavior, expressing her disgust. Shannon informs her that the two of them are having dinner that evening to discuss things and directly accuses Crystal of stealing her husband. Karen tells Shannon she should leave, and Olivia again tries to get Jenny to kick Shannon out of Glow, but she refuses. Throughout the meeting, Jenny and Keisha desperately try to steer the conversation toward that month’s “book”—Vogue, Olivia’s choice—without much luck.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Shannon”
Shannon arrives at the restaurant and orders champagne in anticipation of Bryce’s arrival. She greets him with a warm hug and proposes a toast, saying “To us.” He tells her he doesn’t have long and apologizes for his behavior at the gala. They eat and discuss the recent break-in at Glow. Throughout the meal, Bryce repeatedly brushes her off.
Shannon gets down on one knee and presents Bryce with his old wedding ring, asking him to be her husband again as the restaurant stares. He humiliates her, calls her pathetic, and tells her he loathes her. He says that he’s not sure divorcing her was enough and insinuates that he could get a lot of political sympathy if she died. Shannon calls herself an idiot for letting Bryce do this to her so many times.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Crystal”
Crystal has decided to give Olivia another chance after witnessing Dean’s behavior at the gala and gets ready to meet her for a drink. Bryce comes home and tells Crystal that he and Shannon are fine now. Feeling that something is wrong, Crystal recalls her mom’s advice to trust her gut and wonders why she hasn’t been doing that with Bryce.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Karen”
Shannon shows up at Karen’s door and tells her the story of the dinner with Bryce. She apologizes for her behavior at the salon. Karen gets a text from Keisha with a link to a video posted on YouTube, a compilation of humiliating footage from the gala and proposal.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Olivia”
Crystal asks Olivia about Dean grabbing her arm. Olivia dismisses the incident, annoyed, before she decides that it would be smarter to court Crystal’s sympathy. She tears up on command and tells her that she doesn’t know what’s wrong with Dean these days.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Shannon”
Shannon watches the video of herself on repeat. Karen tries to get it taken down, but it already has more than ten thousand views and hundreds of nasty comments. Shannon realizes that she needs to change.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Karen”
Jenny is at the doctor’s, so Keisha takes over Karen’s spray tan appointment. Both women are concerned about Jenny, who is still jumpy.
Keisha asks why Karen spends so much time with these women, noting that Karen does not invest herself in pointless drama the way they do. Karen admits to feeling lost these days and like a stranger to herself. Keisha says that she knows what it’s like to question one’s identity and that she thinks Karen is amazing.
There’s a moment of connection, and Karen suddenly realizes what’s wrong with her marriage. They passionately kiss, but before it can go further, the door chimes.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Shannon”
Shannon enters and apologizes to Keisha, who readily accepts. She identifies the video as the wake-up call she needed. Both Keisha and Karen encourage Shannon to reclaim her life and independence.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Crystal”
Crystal arrives and tries to rally the other women to support Olivia during a time of crisis, telling them her worries about Dean. The others are skeptical but agree to make an effort during the Manis and Mimosas event the next day.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Jenny”
Present
Jenny tells Detective Sanford that she thinks the women were planning to get along during the event, but then the husbands got in the way.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Jenny”
Keisha and Jenny prepare for their monthly Manis and Mimosas event. Shannon arrives and reaffirms her determination to focus on herself. Olivia announces that she has told all of the other members not to come so it can be a private event for the four main characters. Keisha starts to protest, but Karen grabs her hand and tells her that she needs a wax. They walk off.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Karen”
Karen and Keisha go into a treatment room and have sex. For Karen, the experience is revelatory—she now understands why she had lost interest in sex with her husband. It’s not that anything is wrong with her; instead, she simply needs to accept herself for who she is and learn about what she really desires.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Crystal”
Olivia is needling Shannon and making Crystal uncomfortable when Dean comes in and decides to stay for the event. He’s displeased to find Olivia causing drama.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Olivia”
Olivia told Dean to crash the event in the hope that it would fuel Crystal’s anxiety over their relationship. She’s also the person who compiled and posted the video of Shannon after a friend sent her footage from the restaurant.
Mark arrives, and Olivia speculates that he’s in love with her. Dean and Mark push each other’s buttons while Olivia eggs them on. Eventually, Dean loses his temper, but Jenny and Shannon intervene before he can attack Mark.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Shannon”
Bryce enters the salon, and Crystal tries to intercept him but fails. He goes into the back of the salon to join the women, and he and Shannon snipe at each other. He alludes to her proposal, which is the first Crystal has heard of it. Olivia says something cruel to Shannon, and Dean grabs her and pulls her toward the exit. Mark punches Dean, and the two get into a brawl. Straddling Mark, Dean pulls his arm back to punch him, but accidentally elbows Olivia. Remorseful, he goes to tend to his wife. Jenny shouts and slams a glass pitcher against the table, shattering it. Shannon revels in the out-of-character outburst with the mental observation, “Women weren’t meant to be quiet” (180).
Chapter 37 Summary: “Karen”
Karen tends to Mark in the aftermath of the brawl, but she becomes suspicious over Mark’s pronounced attention to Olivia. In the aftermath, all apologize to Jenny, and Bryce suggests they chalk the incident up to “boys will be boys” (182). Shannon bites her tongue as he and Crystal exit.
Chapters 21-37 Analysis
The second quarter of the book revolves around the theme of Identity Crisis and Image Revision. Both Shannon and Karen undergo moments of profound realization that fundamentally alter their narratives going forward. The larger group of main characters also reevaluates their small community collectively, examining its dynamics and members.
Shannon and Karen undergo crises that advance their self-understanding. While Shannon realizes that she needs to work more on herself, Karen begins to see herself for who she really is, not who others think she should be. Shannon starts these chapters still determined to bend both her husband and her community to her will and return to her former life. She compares Bryce to an “ice sculpture” at which she needs to “chip away”: “Either he’d be sculpted into the man that once loved me, or he’d be destroyed in the process” (118). She fails to adopt an artist’s attitude toward herself. When Bryce cruelly rejects her and someone posts a video of her humiliation online, it serves as the “wake-up call” she needs. She realizes that she could be powerful on her own but needs “a makeover, not for looks, but for life” (146).
As for Karen, her challenge comes in a private encounter with Keisha rather than through a public shaming. She admits that she feels like a “stranger” to herself and questions her “place in the world” (142). Keisha empathizes, revealing that she’s experienced her own identity crisis and adding that she thinks Karen is “amazing.” In this moment of connection, Karen realizes that “there [isn’t] anything actually wrong with [her]” (143). She’s been to the doctor and therapist, searching within her body and mind for whatever “problem” has led to her disinterest in sex with Mark. She’s been doing potentially valuable self-exploration, of the kind her friend Shannon needs to perform, but in Karen’s case there isn’t anything “wrong” inside to fix. Karen realizes something important about her sexuality and newly discovers herself in Keisha’s gaze: “Her eyes held everything—my courage, my trust, my fear, my curiosity, my desire” (161). Reflected in Keisha’s approving eyes, Karen can become a more authentic version of herself.
Karen’s values and support help Shannon to evolve, and externalizing this celebration of individuality and authenticity confirms her in her own journey. After Shannon’s failed proposal, Karen tells her friend, “The men in our lives don’t define us. We define ourselves” (130), and realizes that she is also “saying it to [herself].” While Shannon’s Identity Crisis and Self-Revision sees her move on from Bryce and value her female friendships, Karen’s journey takes her to the realization that she is gay. Not even her romantic interest is defined with respect to men. Karen and Shannon share a second moment in the salon with Keisha immediately after Karen and Keisha embrace for the first time. Karen asserts, “Being yourself is the strongest, most powerful thing you can do. It’s like signing your autograph on something you created” (147). Karen is starting to realize who she is and who she can become. She encourages Shannon to take a proud and artistic approach to herself. Instead of “sculpting” Bryce, Shannon needs to give herself a makeover—one whose goal is not Social Performance and Image Construction for others, but authenticity and honesty for herself.
While the book celebrates individualism against problematic social norms, it also implies that people are inseparable from their communities and the ways that they treat one another. The circle of friends starts reevaluating the Power Dynamics, Toxic Relationships, and Abuse that have informed and damaged their interactions. In these chapters. Karen and Keisha’s transition from friends to lovers is the most dramatic shift, but there are others. Crystal wonders if Olivia’s behavior results from her “toxic relationship with Dean” and asks the women to be supportive (151). Shannon antagonizes Karen, reminding Olivia of when Shannon used to “bully” her: “It was nice to see it happening to someone else for a change” (115). She celebrates this changing dynamic, but it proves temporary. Karen and Shannon repair their relationship, and Shannon reevaluates her approach to friendship. Noticing (but not fully understanding) a tender moment between Karen and Keisha, Shannon reflects that she “had been a fan of women supporting other women (before Crystal came along) […] and hated that [she] had started to become a person who despised other women” (146). She immediately resolves to be civil to Crystal. Shannon further understands her behavior toward others as a fundamental part of her identity. She doesn’t want to play the role of a villain, and so she amends her behavior.
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