50 pages • 1 hour read
Suzanne ParkThe Perfect Escape
Fiction | Novel | YA | 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 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Nate”
Protagonist Nate Kim is a 16-year-old Korean American student who enjoys working at a zombie-themed escape room called the “Zombie Laboratory” (1). Today, as usual, he leads a group of participants through a session but is unsurprised when they immediately fail to “escape” the horde of attacking zombies in less than half an hour. After everyone leaves, one of the “zombie” actors, a girl, steps out of hiding.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Nate”
Nate is immediately intrigued by the girl, who introduces herself as Kate, a new seasonal employee. He feels awkward but is attracted to her, even though she is in her zombie makeup. She asks him for a ride home and promises to buy him food in exchange. Despite this promise, Nate worries that he’ll have to pay for the food, which he cannot afford because he saves all his money for his Xbox subscription, his college fund, and his future business fund; he is very frugal. As they chat, Nate pretends to have more in common with Kate, lying about his preferences for food and music. Kate is a senior at Seattle Academy, and Nate is relieved that she doesn't ask about his school. He is ashamed of his scholarship status at Clyde Hill Academy, which has earned him the nickname “skid.” After he drops Kate off at her home, he notices that she has forgotten her costume wig. He hides it in his room so that his parents won’t ask questions about it.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Kate”
Kate lives in a giant mansion with her father, Robbie Anderson-Steele, who is always away on business. He is the CEO of Digitools, a competitive company that provides home security and other technological products. Their home is filled with smart-home robots and artificial intelligence prototypes. Tonight, Kate watches episodes of the TV show The Walking Dead to get new ideas for zombie makeup and belatedly realizes that she left her wig in Nate’s car. Today is Kate’s 18th birthday, so her best friend, Zoe, who is a freshman at New York University, sends her a happy birthday text. Her father sends her an impersonal birthday cake delivered by a robot. She also notices that her father has ordered himself several parenting books.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Nate”
The next Friday, Nate is excited to see Kate; only their Friday shifts overlap. After he notices that his little sister, Lucy, has damaged Kate’s wig, he takes it with him to school. On the way, he picks up his best friends, Zach and Jaxon, who tease Nate about their mutual friend, Annie, who has recently left their friend group to date other boys. Zach and Jaxon are also attending the school via scholarship, and all three boys are bullied for it. Digitools, which Nate considers the “evilest tech behemoth in the world” (33), has recently donated a state-of-the-art computer lab to their school. A privileged, arrogant student named Peter approaches Nate before class. Peter offers Nate money to deliberately sabotage his GPA. Peter reasons that since Nate has already applied to colleges using his junior-year GPA, he can slack off and give Peter and his friends a chance to make the Dean’s List. Peter hints that he will give Nate $30,000 to do so: enough for a fancy car. Nate is taken aback by the offer but recognizes the substantial amount of money. Later, when he returns home, Lucy is working on a school assignment that focuses on her family tree. When the siblings ask their parents about their Korean grandparents, Nate’s parents behave suspiciously as they remind the two that both sets of grandparents are dead. Nate senses that they are hiding something, but in the traditional value system of his Korean family, parents are never to be questioned, so he does not ask for more information.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Kate”
Kate is nervous about seeing Nate at work that Friday. When she notices his Clyde Hill cross-country uniform in his locker, she laments not having high enough grades to be accepted into the school despite her father’s money. Nate returns her wig and asks for her phone number. Kate doesn’t use her phone because her father tracks her every move, so she lies and takes Nate’s business card instead. He claims that the business cards were the grand prize for winning a young inventors contest; his passion is inventing and innovating ideas.
While she waits in the escape room closet for her cue, Kate recalls her earlier conversation with Zoe, who has repeatedly invited Kate to visit her at NYU. Kate is interested in NYU’s theater program, but her father has discouraged her from pursuing her dream because he believes that theater is too “soft” (51). She misses her late mother’s support for her aspirations. Kate dreams of earning enough money to escape her controlling father and become independent.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Nate”
Nate suddenly forgets his script as he leads a group of people through the escape room. Kate covertly helps him to remember his lines, remarking that her love for theater makes her an expert on memorization. He is grateful but embarrassed. Later, Kate and Nate share a video call, during which Nate feels awkward because of his crush on her. Kate explains that she needs him to be her teammate in a zombie survivalist competition called Zombiegeddon. The entry fee is $100, but the grand prize is $50,000. He agrees, promises to sign them up, and invites her over to discuss their strategy.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
The first several chapters introduce both protagonists and establish the alternating narrative perspectives of the novel, which are employed strategically in order to create two different views on each character, allowing the author to portray their inner thoughts, emotions, and insecurities even as each character perceives the other in an infatuation-induced, idealized light. For example, Nate seems confident and charming to Kate even as he struggles with hidden feelings of awkwardness. Likewise, Kate seems cool and friendly from Nate’s perspective, but the novel also reveals her private anxiety and self-doubt when the narrative shifts to her perspective. This use of two different points of view creates a more realistic tone by showing that even people who are seemingly confident and collected may also suffer from extreme anxieties and insecurities. This dynamic is especially important in a young adult novel, the target audience of which may be struggling with similar issues. Additionally, this section of the novel also establishes the beginning of Nate and Kate’s friendship, as they carefully withhold parts of themselves that they consider private or unappealing. For example, Nate pretends to match Kate’s liking for greasy junk food and tries to hide his scholarship status, while Kate hides the truth about her home situation and identity as Robbie’s daughter. This initial reticence makes their eventual sharing and bonding throughout the competition even more meaningful, as they deepen their tentative friendship into an honest romance.
The alternating perspectives of the novel also juxtapose the two protagonists’ family dynamics, thereby highlighting the differences and similarities between them. For example, Nate scolds Lucy for throwing a tantrum when she is denied ice cream; he tells her that she will never “get anywhere in life by being a crybaby” (60). The antics of Nate’s five-year-old sister annoy him, so he tells her to be tougher. This interaction is reminiscent of an earlier scene in Kate’s memory, where she cried because her father, Robbie, missed her theater performance. She recalls his assertion that “[c]rying always shows weakness. You’ll never go anywhere in life if you’re weak” (51), and he also labels Kate’s passion for theater “the epitome of softness” (51). While the context is wildly different, this exchange is almost verbatim to Nate’s conversation with his sister, showing that both Nate and Robbie are guilty of trying to correct the behavior of other family members—behavior that is perceived to be “soft” or weak. The juxtaposition also implies that Nate has the potential to be just like his tech idol, Robbie Anderson-Steele, and not necessarily in a positive way. This commonality foreshadows Nate’s meeting with Robbie at the end of the novel; in that encounter, Nate must decide if he truly wants to emulate the cruel and self-centered tech mogul.
Moreover, this section further establishes the question of Nate’s morality in his ongoing struggle to fulfill his aspirations and dreams. When Peter offers him the money for grade fraud, Nate must weigh the pros and cons of agreeing to do it. As his narration states, “Damn it. This was a lot of money on the table. It was shady. It was wrong. But it was tempting” (38). He clearly knows that lying and committing a form of fraud are wrong, but he is still tempted by the offer because he feels that he and his family have suffered poverty for long enough. His resentment and ambition are almost enough to push him to accept, and the author uses this encounter to create a sense of suspense, as it will be a while before Nate makes his choice on the matter.
