56 pages • 1 hour read
Maria PadianWrecked
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A 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 1-2
Chapter 1 Summary: “Haley”
Before Chapter 1 begins, a short, italicized section of text is set apart on an empty page. The three paragraphs describe a group of girls making “each other beautiful” (1) in Jenny’s room while her roommate is away.
Chapter 1 opens on Haley, a college freshman, whose phone is going off loudly, waking her from a nap. On the phone, Haley’s mother is frustrated with her; Haley struggles to respond, feeling like “her thoughts take shape in molasses” (3). As Haley’s mother tries to get her to take action, Haley thinks about the past 24 hours: she got a concussion at the Saturday soccer game and had gotten treatment at her coach’s request.
This is Haley’s third concussion, and Haley’s mother is worried that she won’t be allowed to keep playing. Despite her pounding headache, Haley manages to avoid telling her mother that the Coach said Haley won’t being able to play anymore for the season as a result of the concussion. When Haley’s roommate, Jenny, comes back to their room, Haley gets off the phone with her mom, feeling overwhelmed.
Though Haley’s friends think of Jenny as a “mouse,” Haley likes living with Jenny, feeling that they cohabitate well. Jenny asks after Haley, who explains about the concussion. When Jenny apologizes for waking Haley up the night before, Haley feels confused, having difficulty remembering. Haley asks about what Jenny was doing out so late; Jenny describes going to a party that “sucked” and then gets upset, leaving the room abruptly to take a shower. When Jenny exits, Haley gets a bottle of water, having to move Jenny’s very heavy backpack out of the way of the minifridge. Haley thinks, “That girl is way stronger than she looks” (12).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Richard”
The brief italicized excerpt before Chapter 2 describes the pre-party buzz at Conundrum house, where the “looming night trembles with possibility” (13).
In Chapter 2, Richard, a college sophomore, wakes up in bed with Carrie, his girlfriend. Richard savors the last moments of Carrie next to him; he thinks about how much he loves her smell: “sometimes, after they’ve spent the night together, he doesn’t shower” (16). When Carrie eventually wakes up, Richard offers her water for her hangover. Richard reflects on the way that he and Carrie approach words differently. For Richard, words can be “batted carelessly” (18) whereas to Carrie they are powerful.
Carrie and Richard debrief the night before; Carrie is hungover, but Richard avoided drinking too much. Carrie lives in “Out House” (22), an on-campus house for students interested in the outdoors and being environmentally responsible, while Richard landed a spot in Taylor House with a group of male students so into partying that they’ve already received hefty citations from the college and are now banned from hosting social events. As Carrie describes not really remembering her night, Richard tells her that she enthusiastically had sex with him, saying that she “pretty much raped” (23) him. Carrie responds angrily, and over the course of the ensuing argument, they break up.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
Many of the central tensions of Wrecked appear in these opening chapters, from the importance of words to the difficulty of relationships to the complex connection between drinking and sexual assault. Padian foreshadows these potential conflicts most distinctly through the italicized passages that precede each chapter. Before Chapter 1, the italicized section hints at a group of girls getting ready to go out, filled with excitement; before Chapter 2, the excerpt describes the excitement in the air before a party. The short nature of these passages combined with the content of the chapters themselves creates a sense of foreboding about what has happened, or is going to happen, at the party.
Both of the protagonists of Wrecked, Richard and Haley, are young college students who are characterized as being relatively immature. Early on, Richard and Haley each struggle with how to manage their relationships with other people in an appropriate way. In Chapter 1, Haley has difficulty being accountable to her mother over the phone and struggles to have sympathy for her roommate, choosing to remain focused on herself instead. These challenges will prove to continue to be obstacles for Haley as she navigates her social life on campus. In contrast, Richard, who is slightly older, feels more capable of making appropriate decisions, but he still chooses not to when faced with the opportunity to mend things with his girlfriend, Carrie. Even though he knows that he hasn’t said the appropriate things, Richard is unable to make the mature decision and authentically apologize. Maria Padian uses both characters to illustrate the complex ways that young adults learn how to face complications in their relationships with family members, friends, and romantic partners.
