93 pages • 3 hours read
Karen M. McManusOne of Us is Lying
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A 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.
Chapter 30-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 30 Summary
Nate is released, and Eli explains Simon’s plot to him. Nate learns that Addy, “that airhead homecoming princess turned badass ninja investigator,” suffered a cracked skull for trying to help Nate (334). Janae’s broken jaw, Cooper’s heroics, Bronwyn’s determination to uncover the truth, and Kris connecting the dots “nobody else saw” saved him (335). Nate feels like the only one who did not contribute anything. Bronwyn is waiting for him when he is released from prison, but he believes that she will always be “that girl in front of me in the scavenger hunt, her shining hair hypnotizing me so much I almost forget how uselessly I’m trailing behind her” (335).
Cooper is on the cover of People magazine with Kris, who is “the new breakout star of this whole mess” because he figured out the truth (336). The more Kris shuns the spotlight, the more the media seek him. After the police outed Cooper, his Facebook fan page, monitored by Lucas, lost all its followers, but since his heroics, the “likes” shot past 100,000. Cooper struggles to reconcile Jake’s actions with who he believed Jake to be and to accept that Janae stood by, watching Jake act. At the same time, Cooper recognizes his own role. Getting Simon blacklisted from Vanessa’s party made Simon hate Cooper enough to frame him for murder. Cooper will have to learn to live with that, and forgiving others is part of that journey. He reaches out to Keely, and they meet, giving Cooper hope that they will emerge as friends. Baseball teams and college programs have resumed contact with him, which pleases his father enough that he is “looking [Cooper] in the eye again” (339). However, Cooper no longer considers entering the draft. He wants to attend Cal State, the only school that stuck with him after he was outed.
Though her body is healing, Addy realizes that the “emotional stuff will take longer” (339). She recognizes that Ashton and TJ were right about Jake controlling Addy, but Addy would never have believed him capable of trying to kill her, as he tried to in the woods. Her feelings for Simon are also complicated. She feels sad that he wanted to ruin four lives because he blamed them for taking away “things that everybody wants”—friends, success, love—but wishes she had never met him (240). She worries about Nate’s feelings of inadequacy, having personally experienced them and their self-destructive impact. TJ wants to date her, but Addy can never separate him from the chain of events their hookup set off. Ashton rents an apartment for her and Addy so they can both move out from under their mother’s influence.
After Nate is released from prison, Bronwyn gives an interview to Mikhail Powers so that she can publicly admit to and apologize for cheating in chemistry. Nate has kept his distance since being released. When he finally agrees to a visit from her, Bronwyn notices that his house is in better condition now that his mother is staying with him and his father has entered rehab. Their conversation is strained and awkward. She tells Nate that her feelings for him have not changed, but he rebuffs her. She returns home, and Maeve comforts her. After Bronwyn has worn herself out crying, Maeve shows her a tweet from Yale, “To err is human @BronwynRojas. We look forward to receiving your application” (347).
Epilogue Summary
Three months later, Bronwyn is seeing Evan Neiman, her mathlete teammate. They “make a solid couple,” but their relationship is strictly “until-graduation” (349). She applied to Yale but no longer sees it as the “be-all, end-all” and has begun to consider staying local to “keep up with Until Proven” (349). Though she only sees Nate at school, she thinks of him constantly.
Bronwyn applied and was accepted to perform a piano solo with the San Diego Symphony’s High School Spotlight concert. Her submission video was “Variations on the Canon” (350). Her performance goes well, and her friends are in attendance, including Ashton and Eli, who are dating, and Nate, who makes an appearance just as the crowds are dispersing. He compliments her performance, then confesses that he has “been an idiot” (354). He explains that through talking with Addy he has grown to understand why he pushed Bronwyn away: His fears of inadequacy caused him to blow his chance with her. Bronwyn considers rebuffing him out of “pride and self-preservation,” but she does not want to do that (356). He asks if he can take her to see “the second Divergent movie” as friends. She reminds him that he hates those movies, and he replies that he likes her and misses her more than he hates those movies. She tells him she will consider his invitation if he will admit that the movie is “a cinematic tour de force” and he is “dying to see it” (357). He immediately consents. When Bronwyn notes that she expected “more resistance” from him, he tells her that he has “already wasted too much time” (357). She tells him she will contact him, and he replies that he will wait to hear from her when she is ready.
Chapter 30-Epilogue Analysis
Chapter 30 provides closure after Simon’s death is confirmed a suicide and Jake is exposed for his role in the events that followed.
After his release from detention, Nate struggles with feelings of worthlessness. He can articulate how Addy transcended Simon’s stereotype of her but not how he himself has transcended Simon’s stereotype of Nate as a criminal. Nate refers to himself as useless and fails to credit himself for standing up for Cooper when everyone else was silent and helping Bronwyn confront complex truths about herself that she did not want to face. Nate’s willingness to reject popular values may also help Bronwyn see the limits of trying to live up to others’ expectations and by others’ standards. Bronwyn visits Nate after his release and expresses her desire to resume their relationship, but he rejects her.
Cooper is learning to be himself. His younger brother, Lucas, does not care that his older brother is gay. Nonny supports and encourages Cooper, and his father, pleased that his son’s heroism drew recruiters again, has begun to re-engage more directly with Cooper. He continues to struggle to reconcile the two sides of Jake—his friend since ninth grade and the boy who caused so much pain to his friends—and Janae’s inaction. At the same time, he recognizes his own mistakes. His inability to face himself caused him to hurt Simon. Being able to see his pain in Simon’s allows Cooper to forgive others as well as himself.
Addy recognizes that Simon’s pain came from believing that she, Cooper, and Bronwyn had taken things from him that everybody, Addy included, wants. She recognizes the complexity of her feelings about the situation: she is able to see herself in Simon while at the same time wishing that she had never met him. Addy also recognizes the pain Nate is in, which speaks to the bond the disparate group of students formed during the investigation into Simon’s death, because she has been through a similar experience. Feeling unworthy of love and acceptance can make people destructive, just as feeling denied these can make people destructive.
When approached by Mikhail Powers, Bronwyn takes the opportunity to publicly admit that she cheated and apologize. She acknowledges the far-reaching consequences of her cheating and its impact on Simon, demonstrating that she has developed empathy. Like Simon, Bronwyn felt entitled to success because she worked hard, so when her hard work failed to yield that success, she pursued it through other means. Though their choices and outcomes were vastly different, Bronwyn recognizes that it is a matter of degrees and never again wants to be the person who made excuses for her cheating.
The Epilogue resolves the romance between Bronwyn and Nate. Addy’s support and guidance help Nate understand that he pushed Bronwyn away because he did not feel worthy of her. As when Addy cheated on Jake, Nate created the reality he feared: he broke up with Bronwyn because he assumed that he was not good enough for her. In the book’s final scene, Nate is able to take an emotional risk and be vulnerable with Bronwyn.
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