59 pages • 1 hour read
Ann M. MartinRain Reign
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 14-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Storm on the Weather Channel”
Later on the same evening that Rose hears about the hurricane on the radio, Wesley comes home from the bar early. He and Rose eat dinner together, and Rose tells him what she heard about the storm. Wesley dismisses the idea that the hurricane will impact them, saying that they live too far inland. Still, Rose is worried about the hurricane since the radio station reporting on it was a local one, so Wesley says they can watch the Weather Channel after dinner to check on the storm. However, once the TV is on, Rose gets overwhelmed by the visual stimuli of the weather report, and Wesley turns it off. Still dismissive of the storm, Wesley leaves to go to the bar again.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Where We Live”
After Wesley leaves, Rose finds a map to look at Hatford’s position in relation to the ocean. She is slightly reassured by the town’s location, thinking that her father might be right and that the storm might not have much of an impact on them. However, she also notes the location of several streams in the vicinity of her house, including one that separates the house from the main road. Still trying to reassure herself, she goes to bed.
Chapter 16 Summary: “How to Get Ready for a Hurricane”
After several more days of hearing news coverage about the storm, Wesley decides to go into town and get supplies in case the power goes out or he and Rose are stranded for a while. Rose and Rain go with him, and Rose is anxious because of the crowded stores. When they get home, Wesley goes to the bar, and Rose worries about trees falling on their house and double-checks the supplies they bought.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Waiting”
The day that the storm is expected to reach Hatford, Rose only has a half-day of school so that students and their families can prepare for the potentially dangerous weather. Weldon waits with Rose after he brings her home from school until Wesley returns home. The two brothers promise to be in touch the following day, when they know how much damage the storm is going to do. That evening, Rose is overstimulated by the TV and trying to talk to her father, which makes Wesley angry. He sends her to bed early, even though Rain hasn’t been out for her evening walk yet.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Storm Sounds”
Afraid by the noises of the storm raging outside her house, Rose is too anxious to sleep. Rain is afraid, too, and shakes and whimpers. Rose keeps track of all the noises she hears, including a tree falling in the yard outside. The power to the house goes out. Rose eventually falls asleep and finds that Rain is gone when she wakes up in the early morning. It seems that the storm has abated.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Rain Doesn’t Come When I Call”
Rose gets up and discovers that the house still doesn’t have power, two trees have fallen in the yard, and the stream separating her driveway from the main road has flooded and washed out the driveway. She calls Rain from inside and outside, but the dog doesn’t appear. Wesley wakes up and says that he let Rain outside early that morning and went back to bed without letting her back in. Rose panics because she can’t find Rain anywhere.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Why I Get Mad at My Father”
Rose is angry with her father for letting Rain out and not checking to see if she came back to the house. He also let her out without her collar, which Rose had taken off earlier, and Rose worries that even if Rain is found, no one will be able to get in touch with her. The house’s phone is down, so Rose can’t call Weldon to have him help her look for Rain.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Rain’s Nose”
Rose tries to reassure herself that Rain will follow her nose back to their house, as she did when she found Rose’s classroom in Chapter 11, but a day and a half go by and the dog still doesn’t appear. The phone and power at Rose’s house are still out, and the flooding continues to block her driveway. The schools are also closed for the foreseeable future while the power in the area is out. Rose and Wesley work on clearing out their yard of fallen trees and branches.
Chapter 22 Summary: “What Must Have Happened”
Rose determines that Rain must have been washed away in the water when she went out into the yard and that it might take her a while to get back home. However, she fears that Rain will not be able to find her again.
Chapters 14-22 Analysis
Rain’s role in Rose’s emotional life becomes clear in this section. Like many pet owners, Rose has bonded with her pet and values Rain’s companionship. There is also an implicit emotional void in Rose’s life because of her father’s impatient temperament and his physical absence from the house much of the time. The emotional bonds that Rose forms to help her cope with the lack of understanding from her father take on added importance. Her relationships with Rain and Weldon, therefore, are crucial to her emotional well-being because she lacks a nurturing parental figure in Wesley. Without Rain, and as she’s separated from Weldon and her schoolmates because of the hurricane, the tension Wesley brings to the story becomes clear. Rose is frightened of and emotionally hurt by him. Rose can’t even communicate with the outside world to try and get Rain back in this section of the book, making her doubly powerless and vulnerable. Martin uses these events to lay the groundwork for the intensification of Wesley’s abusive tendencies later in the book.
Left stranded emotionally, Rose does try and cope without Rain. She reassures herself about Rain’s ability to find her way home, demonstrating a nascent sense of resilience that will be further developed as the book progresses and she volunteers to give up her beloved dog out of a sense of fairness. Rose will also prove to be an empathetic person, using her own emotional experiences to relate to and feel connected with other people. Wesley himself seems unable to empathize with his own daughter, and Martin’s characterizations of him and Rose continue to suggest that he is an inadequate parental figure. This argument will be supported by Wesley’s leaving Rose with Weldon at the end of the book.
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