67 pages • 2 hours read
Emily HenryBeach Read
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A 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 20-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary: “The Basement”
January wakes up on the couch, having fallen asleep with Gus during a movie marathon. January makes coffee, meanwhile texting Shadi. Shadi says she’s fallen in love with the guy she’s been pursuing. January is excited for Shadi at first because she feels Shadi is more herself when she is in love, but then January learns Shadi is going to visit the guy’s family for the Fourth of July instead of coming to see January.
While texting Shadi, January receives a reply from Sonya regarding the porch furniture, saying she would happily take it for free but can’t afford to buy it from her, then asking if January is free to talk. January ignores it and agrees for Shadi to come in August instead. Gus wakes, and the two have coffee.
For the next few days, January sells and donates more of the household items and furniture. She and Gus begin use her house as an office and relocate to his house in the evening for relaxing. On Wednesday evening, January finds Gus’s old yearbook, and they wrestle over it while she looks at Gus’s old pictures, Gus’s arms wrapped around her. January fears she’s going to lose control soon. She already feels deeply for Gus and fears she’ll get hurt if she lets him catch wind of it.
Gus informs her that he’ll need to change their weekend plans. He must attend Pete’s Fourth of July cookout on Friday and needs to visit the site of the former cult on Saturday. January insists on visiting the cult with him, despite his reluctance. He invites her to the cookout as well, but she’s not sure because Sonya might be there.
Later, January finally decides to enter the basement. She texts Gus that she can’t go to the cookout because she can’t afford to bring anything, then enters the basement to find there isn’t much down there. Gus calls down to her from the top of the stairs, having let himself in because he was concerned that the basement door was open. He tells her she doesn’t need to bring anything to the cookout. January makes a joke that there isn’t a sex dungeon like Shadi thought. January and Gus aren’t down there long before they begin to kiss and touch each other, this time not holding back. They strip each other, and their bodies press against one another as Gus pins January to the shelves along the wall.
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Cookout”
Gus and January have to put their clothes back on and run next door to Gus’s house when they realize neither one has a condom handy. Once at Gus’s, they continue their intimate buildup, strip each other again, and have sex for the first time. Gus admits to wanting January for a long time, before the drive-in and even before the frat party.
When they finish, they remain close. Gus jokes that he “didn’t show up to [her] sex dungeon to seduce [her]” (251). They are interrupted by Gus’s phone ringing, and his demeanor quickly changes. He tells January he has to take the call and that he’ll meet her at her place before they leave for the cookout, which January has agreed to attend because Sonya won’t be showing up until later. January becomes fraught with anxiety, feeling like Gus will leave her now because of the way he jumped from girl to girl in college.
They arrive at Pete and Maggie’s to a warm welcome. Pete tells Gus she has a swimsuit waiting for him and relays the story of Gus as a child, never wanting to leave the pool. She also offers January a swimsuit but says it might be a little long on her. They greet the partygoers and get drinks. January pulls Gus aside to ask if everything is okay in regard to his phone call earlier. Gus assures her he’s fine, and they continue to socialize with Pete and Maggie. January zones out thinking about how Gus seems so calm and happy around his aunts. She inadvertently agrees to a Q&A because she wasn’t paying attention to the conversation.
January is sure from Gus’s body language and demeanor that something is bothering him. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom. January offers to join him, hinting that they sneak away for a bit, but he declines. She takes this personally, thinking he is distancing himself from her now that they’ve had sex. She anxiously drinks her drink and waits for Gus to return. She’s certain that she was just a “loose end he’d finally gotten to tie up” (263), and now that he is done with her, he will distance himself. January is sure she’s set herself up for heartbreak, and now she needs to brace herself for the pain.
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Trip”
While January swims at the cookout, Gus goes inside to be alone. When they leave, Gus is still acting distant. On the ride home, they hardly speak. Gus seems lost in thought, and January lets her thoughts run wild with concern. When they get home, Gus tells January to let him know whether she wants to join him for their trip to the cult site tomorrow. January asks if he wants her there, and he replies that he wants her to do whatever she wants. January is upset that he doesn’t see her as his research companion anymore and that they’re parting ways at five in the evening when they usually spent evenings together. She confirms she’ll join him, and they go to their respective houses.
January writes a little in her angry state. When she goes to bed, she can see Gus writing, too. Shadi texts January saying she’s fallen in love and jokingly adding “RIP me” to the end of the message.
The next morning, January once again must insist to Gus that she wants to go. It’s a stormy morning, and he picks her up late. While waiting, she writes and continues to add conflict to her characters’ lives.
They drive several hours to the site of the cult, called New Eden, deep in the woods. They must hike a long way through the rain and trees to get to the burned-down remains of the cult. January is still on edge, concerned about her standing with Gus, but becomes somber when they reach New Eden’s remains. They set up a tent away from the cult site so they can store their belongings in a dry space and use their laptops if needed. Afterwards, they head back to the site. Gus once again tries to get January to let him visit it alone, but she insists on viewing every building with him. He takes notes quietly as they move through. Once they get to the cult leader’s house a second time, Gus begs January to go back to the tent because it is freezing and they’re both soaked. January reluctantly agrees, thinking Gus is pushing her away and wanting to respect his space.
When Gus returns, January finally asks about the phone call. Gus says it was their divorce lawyer, his old friend Kayla Markham. January cries and asks why Gus is trying to get rid of her. He insists he isn’t and explains that he didn’t want to be the reason she spent her entire day in a dark and depressing place. Gus explains that the divorce is being drawn out because Naomi wants to settle a few more details.
He goes on to explain that he told Kayla (or Markham, as he calls her) about January, and Markham told him that it was a bad idea for him to pursue January. Gus finally confesses that he was crazy about January all through college—that every time he borrowed her pens, showed up late and sat next to her, or critiqued her work with extra detail, it was to get her attention: “I’m an idiot when it comes to you” (282).
He explains that he worries that January’s interest in him is just temporary while she goes through a rough patch. He compares himself to Jacques, saying he’s nothing like that. January assesses that Gus feels he has a missing piece and that he can’t make people stay. Gus expresses that he knows he’s going to mess up their relationship somehow. January assures him that he needs to just talk to her and let her care about him.
Chapters 20-22 Analysis
The basement is a long-avoided venture for January. She intentionally holds off on visiting it much like she intentionally holds off on letting herself get too close or intimate with Gus. However, once the two of them are alone in the basement for the first time, January breaks that barrier and lets herself lose control, leading to their first time having sex. The basement setting moves Gus and January to new physical territory, prompting them to explore new emotional territory as well. The basement as a device to move January and Gus toward intimacy is foreshadowed by Shadi and January’s jokes about it being a sex dungeon.
Gus’s subsequent distancing of himself from January sends her spiraling. She is positive that she has now become just another one of his temporary flings. Thus, it is ironic when Gus reveals it’s because he cares too much about her and is afraid of getting hurt as well. Their internal emotions are parallel, each worried that the other will get bored and leave them hurting.
While January is in a bad mental state, she channels this energy into her characters, giving them more conflict to deal with to mirror the building conflict in her own life. January’s writing has been a key outlet for her since she and Gus made the bet. The turmoil in her own life is translated to the lives of her characters, and when things get worse for her, she pours her own conflicts into the book. As the plot of Beach Read complicates, so does the plot of January’s book.
The site of the cult and the long journey to arrive there symbolize the raw emotions within Gus and January’s long journey to get to his core. Gus sees himself as broken, guarded, and full of darkness. He has made himself difficult to access to those around him, especially January. When they finally arrive at the site of New Eden, a place marred by its dark history, Gus spills himself to January, confessing how he’s pined for her for years and explaining how he feels broken by his past. The stormy weather adds another level to this symbolism. It represents January’s inner turmoil as well as Gus’s spilling his truth to her the way the sky spills itself onto them.
Shadi’s relationship develops parallel to January’s. Shadi’s progress with her love interest results in her meeting his family at a Fourth of July get-together, leaving January to attend Gus’s family’s get-together. When Shadi texts January about being in love, January is also coming to terms with the love she feels for Gus and the pain she anticipates resulting from it, making Shadi’s “RIP me” comment all the more relatable to January.
Chapter 22 ends on a tender note. In the closeness of the tent, sheltered from the rain, January and Gus are no longer foils for one another: They have developed a deep understanding of their mutual desires and fears and have grown together as two similar people, starkly contrasting who they were the first time they got in Gus’s car together, bantering as rivals. Their similar goals are no longer limited to their writing pursuits but are now reflective of their relationship as a whole, both determined to be gentle with one another and keep each other happy.
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