49 pages • 1 hour read
Ugly Love
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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Tate”
Tate Collins moves from San Diego to San Francisco to attend graduate school. In San Francisco, she plans to stay with her older brother, Corbin, while she looks for a job as a registered nurse (RN). Corbin, an airline pilot, is away for the weekend when she arrives, and she meets the friendly elevator attendant, Cap. Cap looks at Tate’s birthmark and remarks, “Somebody stabbed you in the neck, young lady” (1). He shares his grandfather’s wisdom and explains that people’s birthmarks indicate how they died in a previous life. Tate regards the elderly man as harmless and makes polite small talk with him before getting in the elevator. A married man named Dillon enters the elevator. He tries to flirt with Tate, but she is leery of his advances.
Tate makes it up to her floor safely, but there’s a drunk man sleeping against the apartment door. She calls her brother and stays on the phone with him while she tries to ease past the man. He grabs her ankle, and she slams the door on him, only to realize she left her purse and suitcase in the hallway. Corbin calls his neighbor and friend from flight school, Miles, to help Tate. When Corbin calls Tate back, he explains that Miles, his neighbor, is the one who is drunk outside the room and asks her to let him crash on the couch.
Tate is not happy, but her older brother is protective of her, so she knows he would never put her in danger. She has had a challenging love life—between Corbin’s protectiveness of her in high school and her last serious boyfriend, who wanted her to sacrifice her career—and isn’t interested in love. Tate believes that living with Corbin will shield her from romantic relationships. She helps Miles onto the couch. He’s attractive but has a scar that runs along his cheek. Miles drunkenly pulls her down on the couch with him. He apologizes and cries profusely, repeatedly calling her “Rachel.” Although Tate is uncomfortable, she can tell Miles is genuinely remorseful and feels bad for him.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Miles, Six Years Ago”
Six years earlier, Miles Archer brings the roll sheet to the office secretary, Mrs. Borden, from his senior English class with Mr. Clayton. Mrs. Borden asks if he would wait for a minute to escort a new student, Rachel, to Mr. Clayton’s class with him. He complies and waits in the office. He realizes he’s never had detention, which he feels proud of at first and then ashamed. He texts his friend, Ian, who has had two detentions. Miles hopes he’ll get detention for having his phone out, but his plan fails. Rachel arrives, and Miles instantly falls in love with her flushed cheeks, green eyes, and red hair. She sits across the room from him, and he texts Ian that he wants Rachel to have his babies. Although he’s uncharacteristically nervous, Miles musters the courage to ask Rachel out after class. They agree to meet up the next day and exchange numbers.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Tate”
Back in the present day, Miles confronts Tate and wants to know what happened the previous night. He also wants his phone. Tate doesn’t answer his questions right away. She is not a morning person and is furious that he burst into her room. She’s also annoyed that he is yelling at her after how patient she was with him. She eventually tells him where to get his phone. Corbin comes home and asks Miles to help move Tate’s things in. When Corbin leaves the room, Tate tells Miles that nothing happened between them the night before. They ride the elevator together, and Miles reintroduces himself to Tate to start over after his outburst. Cap asks Tate how her first night was at the apartment, and she tells him about Miles’s drunkenness. Cap explains that Miles can’t help it. Tate, Miles, and Corbin move Tate’s belongings inside, but Miles doesn’t say another word to Tate the whole time.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Miles, Six Years Ago”
Miles learns his father is dating another woman, Lisa, which bothers Miles since his mom died less than a year ago. Miles’s father wants Miles to give Lisa a chance. Miles realizes his dad is a flawed person but resents him. Lisa and her daughter come over for dinner, and Lisa’s daughter turns out to be Rachel. Miles and Rachel are devastated. Completely unaware, the parents think it’s a good thing the teens know each other. Miles closes the door on his feelings for Rachel.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Tate”
Tate makes plans to visit her parents with her brother for Thanksgiving. She is settled into her new job and has been having a good relationship with Corbin, even though he’s not home often. She feels secure and at home and thinks she might stay in San Francisco rather than trying to move back to San Diego when she’s done with school. Then, she sees Miles on her couch with two other men drinking and watching a game. One of the men is Dillon, the sleazy married man from the elevator, and another is a lanky blond man, Ian. Apparently, it is their tradition to watch games on Thursday. Tate remarks, “Corbin isn’t even home tonight. Can’t you do this at your apartment?” (41). She goes into the kitchen to make sandwiches (one for her and one for Cap) before studying.
Dillon comes into the kitchen and flirts with Tate, but Miles comes in and makes him leave. Miles insists she use his room to study, so she does. She thinks she’ll learn something interesting about him by seeing his personal belongings, but his apartment is barren. She looks through his things, and Miles walks in on her when she’s pouring herself some orange juice from the fridge. They chat about the day they met, and Miles explains that he doesn’t drink often: He usually only drinks water. Tate brings up Rachel, and she realizes this is a taboo subject. Miles tells her goodnight, and Tate realizes that she’s made their acquaintance uncomfortable.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
The first five chapters introduce the primary and secondary characters and their respective roles within the novel. Elizabeth Tate Collins is the protagonist, Miles Mikel Archer is the antagonist and Tate’s love interest, Dillon is a foil to Miles, Cap is the mentor and comedic relief, Corbin Collins is the protective older brother, and Ian is best friends with Miles and Corbin. Hoover uses alternating points of view to offer both direct and indirect characterization. The novel predominantly alternates between the perspectives of Tate in the present and flashbacks of Miles six years prior. The third person omniscient narrator allows the reader insights into the lives of both Tate and Miles. The effect is that readers can draw their own conclusions about events and develop a deeper understanding of the characters.
Through the primary characters, Hoover thematically introduces The Duality of Pleasure and Pain, Relationship Boundaries Versus Emotional Walls, and Fear and Control as Roadblocks to Love. Although the alternating points of view are both straightforward, Miles’s chapters incorporate poetic verse. As soon as Miles meets Rachel, his words cascade down the page until they’re centered like poetry. This prose/poetry dichotomy signals Miles’s emotional and psychological states. Prose represents his linear, logical way of moving through life, and poetry represents the pleasure and pain associated with love.
In addition to alternating points of view, Hoover incorporates secondary characters like Cap, Dillon, and Ian to further characterize Tate and Miles. By starting the novel with a humorous scene involving Cap, Hoover establishes the elderly attendant as comedic relief. His outlandish opening statement is intended to hook the reader, and Hoover characterizes Cap as a forward, good-natured man who uses humor to diffuse tension. Tate’s kindness toward Cap and her polite response to his unusual conversation highlights her warmth. Additionally, Cap’s remark about scars foreshadows Miles’s painful past. The idea that scars and birthmarks symbolize how a person died in a past life applies to the scar on Miles’s cheek. Miles’s scar implies that a version of him died with his son, although the details are not revealed until much later in the novel. Hoover introduces the character of Rachel in Miles’s flashbacks to build suspense and foreshadow the cause of Miles’s pain.
In the opening chapter, Hoover also primes readers with a red herring love interest, Dillon, who is a philandering married man. Dillon is a foil for Miles. Dillon’s romantic interest in Tate and Miles’s subsequent disapproval of Dillon helps to characterize Miles as a man with integrity, despite his questionable intoxicated entrance into Tate’s life. Although Tate and Miles both think they’re good at disguising their emotions and intentions, characters like Cap and Ian are able to see their true motivations. For example, Tate disapprovingly storms in when Miles, Ian, and Dillon watch the game in Corbin’s apartment. This signals to Ian that she has another motive for wanting to study at Miles’s apartment across the hall. Tate repeats this action in front of Corbin, Ian, and Miles at the end of novel. In this way, Hoover plants several seeds to foreshadow the nature of Tate’s relationship with Miles, as well as Ian’s ability to see through people to understand what’s really happening. The motif of doors and doorways emerges in these chapters, particularly through the character of Miles. Miles’s ability to bypass Tate’s physical and emotional doors foreshadows the effect he will have on her throughout the novel.
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By Colleen Hoover
