33 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren OliverBefore I Fall
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A 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 4-5 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Once more, Sam wakes on Feb. 12. She gets into Lindsay’s car, angry with her. She feels like Lindsay is committing all the wrongs and she, Sam, has to pay the price. She’s also angry because her day started with a fight with her parents over her clothes. As Lindsay drives them to school, Sam is cold to both Elody and Lindsay, and she decides she doesn’t feel connected to Rob anymore at all. Then she yells at Lindsay, first about her bad driving, then about not caring about anyone. Lindsay stops the car and kicks Sam out after their argument escalates further. At school, Sam just roams around for the first four periods, aimless, almost hoping to get caught by a teacher or Ms. Winters. She has no roses because she hasn’t been to class, and she doesn’t care.
When she goes beyond flirting with Mr. Daimler, her math teacher, he becomes angry with her, but it just makes Sam feel powerful. He demands to see her after class, then asks what she was thinking. She tries to seduce him, and he starts kissing and groping her. She stops him by saying they can’t do this in the classroom and he climbs off of her. He urges her not to tell anyone and she agrees. She plans to tell her friends though, after she makes up with them.
Sam goes into the bathroom when she discovers her friends have abandoned her at lunch. So instead, she smokes weed with Anna Cartullo, who asks why Sam and her friends hate her. Sam answers that they have to take things out on someone. She accidentally reveals that she knows Alex is cheating on his girlfriend, Bridget, with Anna, and Anna swears her to secrecy. Sam isn’t planning to tell anyone. She tells Anna about kissing Mr. Daimler. Anna leaves to go meet Alex and Sam gets caught with some of the cigarettes Anna accidentally dropped by none other than Ms. Winters. Sam reveals that she witnessed Ms. Winters and the gym teacher making out and gets a warning instead of three days suspension. Sam wants to make up with Lindsay, but Lindsay leaves school before she can talk to her.
The “Pugs”—a group of four girls who occasionally hang out with Sam’s friends—invite her to join them for shopping. She tells them about Ms. Winters and Mr. Otto. They stop at Sam’s house and she sneaks in and takes her mother’s credit card while her mom is showering. At the mall, Sam goes on a shopping spree, spending hundreds of dollars. On the way back from the mall, Sam flashes her breasts at a group of college guys who pull up next to them on the road. They go to dinner at a fancy French restaurant, where they order champagne and half the menu—and Sam pays for it all with her mother’s credit card. They get drunk and then make their way to Kent’s party, with Sam planning—once more—to have sex with Rob.
At the party, she gets into an argument with Kent. Then, she and the Pugs discover a room Kent doesn’t want anyone to be in, and that’s where they find hard liquor. They break a vase and go back to the party. She finds Lindsay, Elody, and Ally. Ally urges her to apologize to Lindsay, and that’s when Juliet shows up. Sam flees from her and the ghostly visions she inspires, and runs straight into Rob. She makes out with him but when he falls asleep, she exits the room they’d ducked into to find Juliet has already left the party. Sam goes back into the forbidden rooms of the house and sobs. When she stops, she discovers that Kent is there, too. He admits he only had the party so that Sam would come to it, and she apologizes for fighting with him before and says she doesn’t want to go home. He invites her to stay in one of the guest rooms in the house; Sam agrees.
Chapter 5 Summary
For the fifth time, Sam wakes up on Feb. 12, but this time she feels relieved because she and Lindsay are friends, no one is angry at her, she didn’t kiss her teacher, or spend a party in tears. When Izzy comes into her room, Sam says she’s not going to school and tickles Izzy. Sam tells her mom Rob dumped her, and that he never really liked her that much. Her mom gives her permission to stay home, and offers to stay with her, but Sam declines. After some prodding, Izzy and Sam convince their mother that Izzy should stay home with Sam.
Sam reminisces about when she was a child and she ran away to Goose Point because her parents wouldn’t buy her the bike she wanted. Sam named the place after a goose feather that fell next to her head while she was lying on a rock looking at the sky. When Sam was little, she thought time passed more slowly at Goose Point. Wanting to share her secret place with her sister, Sam takes Izzy to Goose Point, where Izzy finds a goose feather, which Sam pockets for safe-keeping. Sam and Izzy spend the rest of the day together, and then go out to dinner with their parents. All day, Sam ignores Rob. She also receives texts from her friends, but ends up shutting off her cell phone.
At dinner, Sam meets Juliet Sykes’ younger sister, Marian. She warns Marian to tell Juliet not to do it, but Marian is confused. Sam then lies, saying she’s she’s referring to a science project, but promises Marian that Juliet will know what she means. Marian says she’ll have to tell Juliet tomorrow because Juliet is going out for the night. Sam knows Juliet intends to go confront Lindsay, Elody, Ally, and herself. Despite her best efforts to forget Juliet and Marian, Sam can’t—so she ends up sneaking out, planning on going to Kent’s party.
She borrows her mom’s car and leaves, and finds herself at Juliet Sykes’ house. Upon arriving, she finds Juliet not at home—but Mr. and Mrs. Sykes are there. Sam pretends that she was supposed to pick up some schoolwork, so Mrs. Sykes calls Juliet, who doesn’t answer her phone. Sam leaves after Mrs. Sykes suggests she come back the next day.
Sam decides to go to Kent’s party and stop Juliet from killing herself. But Juliet has already left the room, and Sam ends up calling Lindsay out. Juliet is in the bathroom, and has been for twenty minutes; Sam worries she’s tried to kill herself already. She sends someone for Kent, who picks the lock open, and they discover the bathroom is empty. With the window open, Sam and Kent figure Juliet must have climbed out, so Sam runs out of the house to find her. Sam tries to track her through the woods, but loses her flashlight. Her fingers and feet go numb from the cold, and the weather is getting worse as the storm comes in, bringing freezing rain. When someone honks, Sam realizes she’s not that far from the road and starts in that direction. Just as she reaches the road, she finds Juliet hunched beside the pavement. Sam tries to convince her to come over and talk, but Juliet is resistant. Sam hears Kent calling for her, and Juliet throws herself into the road, where she is hit by Lindsay, Elody, and Ally in The Tank. Lindsay loses control and drives into the woods.
Kent catches up to Sam and she tells him that the others are in the car. He calls 911. Lindsay arrives in tears; Kent helps Ally. Elody is still in the now-burning Range Rover. First responders arrive and place Juliet and Elody on stretchers. The scene clears and Kent leads Sam back to his house so she can warm up. Sam learns from Kent that both Elody and Juliet died. Sam cries in Kent’s arms. Kent brings Sam warm, dry clothes and a towel so she can warm up with a shower. Sam asks Kent to stay with her and then she asks why he’s being so nice to her. He reminds her of when they were in the second grade and she helped him stand up to a boy who was bullying him. Just before she falls asleep, they kiss.
Chapters 4-5 Analysis
Even though Sam didn’t go to the party and die in a car accident, she wakes up again on Cupid Day. Feeling hopeless, she decides she’s going to do whatever she wants without regard to anyone else. Some of these experiences leave her feeling better than others.
Fighting with Lindsay doesn’t make her feel happy, especially when she gets kicked out of the “The Tank.” However, her need to understand how Lindsay could care so little that Juliet killed herself on the previous version of Cupid Day drives Sam to argue with Lindsay even though Lindsay doesn’t recall the same events as Sam.
At school, Sam tries to seduce her teacher, but when he’s into it, she starts to feel uncomfortable with his weight on her, and pushes him away. After this exchange, and with Kent’s failed attempt to assure her that she deserves better than Mr. Daimler, Sam only feels worse.
It’s not until she meets with Anna in the bathroom that she starts to feel better, and then after school she’s ready to make peace with Lindsay—but the feeling isn’t mutual. Once more, Sam turns to rule breaking to distract herself from emotional pain when she steals her mother’s credit card and goes on a shopping spree. She feels powerful, until she goes to the party and makes out with Rob…who then promptly falls asleep, stripping Sam of her power. Once more, Sam is left feeling insecure and uncertain. It’s Kent’s kindness that redeems her, and that’s when she starts to think that perhaps Kent cares for her more than Rob ever did.
The next day, Sam is, at first, content to spend time with her family. She wants to create more memories, especially with Izzy, so she takes her to her childhood hideout. She spends the evening trying to forget that Juliet killed herself on the previous version of Cupid Day, but after meeting Marian, Sam can’t get Juliet out of her mind. She keeps thinking of how Izzy would feel if Sam were gone. Sam tries to fall asleep but can’t, so she sneaks out of the house.
When she reaches Juliet’s house, and finds her gone, she feels helpless and hopeless, which isn’t helped by the vibes she gets from Juliet’s home and parents. The home is dark, and barely looks lived in. Sam finds a picture frame displayed in the entry hall, but upon closer inspection it just has the paper with models inside instead of family or friends. Sam thinks, when she goes to Kent’s party and catches up with Juliet, that she’s managed to save her. But when Juliet dies anyway, Sam realizes that her desire to stop Juliet’s suicide was based on a selfish desire to save herself. She doesn’t want to save Juliet because she likes her as a person, but to prevent her own death.
