43 pages • 1 hour read
Karyn Langhorne FolanPretty Ugly
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.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Jamee receives an F on her geometry test from her math teacher, Mrs. Guessner. She will be required to get her parent’s signature on the test and return it to the teacher. After handing back the tests, Mrs. Guessner asks Jamee about question number 11—one Jamee solved correctly but most students got wrong. Jamee, upset and feeling stupid, can’t remember how she solved the problem. Mrs. Guessner tells Jamee that she should take her studies more seriously, but Jamee snaps back that no one is ever going to ask her to solve for x in real life.
After class, Mrs. Guessner tells Jamee that she will be offering a retest after school on Thursday and that she wants Jamee to come in for tutorials after school for the next couple of days. Jamee protests that she can’t do that because cheerleading tryouts are after school that week. Mrs. Guessner sternly tells Jamee that she will not be able to be a cheerleader unless her academics are good. She then compares Jamee to her older sister, Darcy, and Jamee shuts down. She resents the many comparisons that have been made between her and Darcy, who is a smart, dedicated, college-bound junior at the school. Mrs. Guessner reminds Jamee of a meeting her parents had with the principal of the school before Jamee started 9th grade that year. In it, the principal mentioned concerns about Jamee’s middle school academic performance and suggested that the school and parents communicated often. Jamee’s parents assured the principal that they would be diligent about making sure Jamee was doing her work.
After school that day, Jamee attends cheerleading tryouts. She sits with her friend Amberlynn, and they talk about how excited they are. Jamee and Amberlynn have been friends since the 5th grade, a time when Jamee’s grandmother was alive and living with the family. Jamee’s grandmother was invested in Jamee’s academic success and helped encourage her without making her feel badly about not being as smart as Darcy. In middle school, thanks to Amberlynn, Jamee got into cheerleading and discovered that she loved it. Jamee values the consistency of cheerleading since everything at home has been changing recently—her father returned after a long absence, the grandmother who helped raise her passed away, and her mother became pregnant at the age of 40. Amberlynn points out that there are a lot of girls at the tryout and that only a few of them will make the squad. This makes Jamee nervous. She remembers that she was supposed to meet Mrs. Guessner after school, but then the cheerleading coach, Coach Seville, enters the gym.
Chapter 2 Summary
In Coach Seville’s welcoming speech, she reminds everyone that “cheerleaders are expected to work as a team, to maintain a solid grade point average, and to reach for excellence” (16). She announces that practice will take place the next two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, and final tryouts will take place after school on Thursday. She asks if everyone understands and encourages them to shout “Yes, Coach!” in response.
The cheerleader captains teach the hopefuls cheer choreography that has a step routine embedded within it. While the girls are practicing the routine for the first time, Jamee ends up dancing next to a girl named Angel. Angel was struggling even more than Jamee. She stomped on Jamee’s foot hard by accident. When the Coach asks if the girls are ready to perform the routine, Angel is the only one who loudly responds “Yes, Coach!” the way the girls were taught. This causes some other girls—Tasha, who Jamee knows, and a pretty girl named Vanessa—to start making fun of Angel. Amberlynn tells Jamee that Vanessa is a junior who tried out for the squad last year but didn’t make it.
Coach Seville praises Angel for her spirit, which causes another girl to call her a “suck up.” Coach Seville glares and firmly announces that she will not accept disrespect between cheerleaders and that if someone says that again, they’ll be kicked out of auditions and not allowed to return. She tells the girls that they will be split into smaller groups to perform the dance. As they wait, Angel chants the order of the steps to herself quietly, which Jamee finds odd. Angel is in the first group to perform. Vanessa tells her to “go home,” but the Coach doesn’t hear. Vanessa and Angel both perform very well in their group, though Vanessa is praised for smiling during the routine.
Amberlynn does well and smiles during the routine but does mess up a few times. When it’s Jamee’s turn, she pushes through her anxiety and worry about the math test with a smile on her face. When they begin the step routine, she hears Angel’s chant in her mind, which helps her remember the steps. Amberlynn tells Jamee she was great. Jamee tries to thank Angel for helping without knowing it, but the girl is already gone.
Chapter 3 Summary
Jamee’s boyfriend Desmond (Dez) is waiting for her outside. He gives her a “sloppy kiss” and tells her she looks good in her short shorts. Jamee is embarrassed by the attention this draws and tells him to stop. Before they can leave, Tasha and Vanessa approach. Tasha introduces Jamee and Dez to Vanessa like she is “royalty.” Vanessa says that Jamee was good and will probably make the squad. She explains that she would have made the squad last year, but she sprained her ankle and had to sit out while it healed. Jamee blushes under this attention from a popular upperclassman but soon feels awkward when the other girls start making fun of Angel. One of the girls calls Angel an ableist slur. Then, Angel appears on a path near the group. Vanessa raises her voice and continues to make fun of Angel. Jamee tries to defend Angel, but the other girls are undeterred. When Angel is closer, Tasha calls her unattractive.
Dez confronts Tasha about the comment, but Vanessa says Tasha is only telling the truth. The other girls laugh loudly. As Angel tries to pass, Vanessa trips her. Dez tries to help Angel up, but she ignores him and picks up her books. Vanessa makes another nasty comment. Jamee asks Vanessa why she tripped Angel. One of the other girls, Kym, asks if Jamee is Darcy’s sister, then says she “thought [Darcy’s sister] [would] be smarter” (34). Tasha’s cell phone goes off, and Angel hurries away. Tasha speaks disrespectfully to her mother, then Vanessa asks to borrow the phone to text her own mother. Tasha is hesitant but, overcome by Vanessa’s sudden coldness, allows the other girl to have her phone. Tasha confirms that the phone can also take pictures and video.
Vanessa invites Jamee along with the other girls to her house to practice. She asks if Dez and Jamee have “other plans,” implying that they may be planning to have sex. Jamee says she has to go home because her family is having dinner with her aunt that night. As they leave, Dez says that the girls are mean, “Like a pack of dogs, only better looking” (37). Dez invites Jamee out for pizza the next night with a group of friends, including Jamee’s sister, Darcy. Jamee hesitates because she doesn’t like spending time with her sister but agrees to go.
As soon as Jamee arrives home, Darcy is snapping at her about being late. Jamee would like to tell her sister about what happened with Vanessa, Tasha, and Angel, but she thinks her sister is too involved in her studying to be interested in Jamee’s life. Jamee asks if their Dad is home. He has been working two jobs (cable company by day, taxicab by night) and is rarely home. Jamee’s mother enters and scolds Jamee for not being ready yet. She has been irritable lately because of her pregnancy and working long hours as an ER Nurse.
That night, they have dinner with Jamee’s mother’s sister Charlotte. Jamee thinks Charlotte is mean and looks down on them. She references a fight between her and Charlotte last year and offers not to go to dinner, but her parents insist. She feels like no one listens to or cares about her anymore. She goes to her room to change and slams the door closed.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The novel’s early chapters provide key traits and struggles for each of the important characters. In doing so, these chapters emphasize the differences between Jamee and her sister Darcy. Jamee’s very emotional responses depict her as reactive and immature, especially in comparison to her serious and studious sister. Darcy is very concerned with their parents’ health and happiness, while Jamee is perceived as wild and disobedient. Jamee’s own thoughts on her relationships and behavior reveal that she is struggling to develop an identity as an individual in the shadow of her family’s other priorities. Frequently, she reflects on the family’s preoccupation with Darcy’s future and the new baby that’s on the way.
Darcy is a particularly significant obstacle to Jamee being accepted on her own terms as an individual. College—and Darcy’s likelihood to attend—functions as a symbol of success in the text. The family struggles financially, as is evidenced by the socioeconomic markers. For example, Jamee’s father must work two jobs so that the family can afford to pay for the things the new baby will need. Similarly, Tasha explains to her group of friends that she had to save all summer to purchase a phone that takes pictures and videos. Even in possession of the phone, Tasha and her family can only afford limited usage of the phone, and Tasha must limit herself to “a few minutes a month” (36). A college education is often framed as a pathway to escape poverty and rise to a higher standard of living. The focus on Darcy’s college career firmly establishes academics as a high priority for the family.
It is notable, then, that Jamee struggles academically. This establishes a contrast between her and Darcy, one in which Darcy is widely acknowledged as superior in terms of academics and intelligence. The first word of the book is “F,” Jamee’s score on an early math test. This, alongside Mrs. Guessner’s fond recollections of Darcy’s academic excellence, introduces one of Jamee’s primary conflicts: the creation of an individual identity. The frequent comparisons to Darcy that Jamee endures—her history, English, physical science, and algebra teachers, the principal, and random upperclassmen—leave her feeling both resentful and diminished. Darcy’s existing reputation at the school casts a long shadow, one Jamee feels herself struggling to escape.
While the struggle to create a discrete and individual identity for herself is one of Jamee’s primary internal conflicts in the text, she also faces external conflict in the form of Tasha and Vanessa’s mean-spirited friend group. Vanessa is a confident and beautiful upperclassman whose praise and attention initially make Jamee feel good. However, as Jamee observes how Vanessa and her friends treat Angel, she realizes how cruel they can be. Though Jamee is, at this early stage, too afraid to defy Vanessa and directly befriend Angel, she is disturbed enough by the girls’ behavior that she does confront Vanessa for tripping Angel. She is quickly warned off by one of the other girls, whose claim that she “thought you’d be smarter” (34) serves as a warning not to anger or challenge Vanessa and her friends. Jamee observes that Tasha is not yet fully integrated with this group, noticing that Tasha “beamed with pride” after she made the other girls laugh with a cruel imitation of Angel (30). Jamee, too, could join in, but she feels uncomfortable. Jamee will wrestle with the balance between self-preservation and moral courage for the rest of the book, contributing to the theme of Social Pressure and Conformity in the text.
The girls’ early treatment of Angel—particularly their use of an ableist slur to describe her—also begins to build toward the theme of Prejudice as a Tool in Bullying. Though Bluford High is a racially diverse school, prejudices exist in the form of anti-gay bias, classism, and ableism. Vanessa and her friends’ delight in repeatedly using slurs and mimicking Angel’s voice highlights the treatment of people who are different and predicts the further prejudice that will occur later in the text. Their actions also relate to the title, Pretty Ugly, which is a play on words. Though Vanessa and her friends are regarded as very pretty, making others want to emulate them, their behavior is “ugly” and distasteful.
