Ugly Love (Hoover)/Chapter 4

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Colleen Hoover

Ugly Love. Chapter 4

An unexpected family connection threatens a budding romance

2014

Summary of a Chapter
from the Collection “Ugly Love”

The original takes about 6 minutes to read

Microsummary

Miles reluctantly agreed to meet his widowed father’s girlfriend, then discovered she was Rachel’s mother. Fearing Rachel could become his stepsister, he believed their romantic future was impossible.

Chapter Summary

Six years earlier, seventeen-year-old Miles was summoned home from Ian’s house by his father. His father told him about dating Lisa, although Miles’s mother had been dead for less than a year.

Miles angrily challenged his father’s decision. He felt he needed to defend his dead mother and disliked the happiness in his father’s eyes when he mentioned Lisa. He feared her arrival would change their relationship while his mother’s presence still filled the house.

His father explained that Lisa made him happy and asked Miles only to be kind to her. Miles agreed, and they hugged. The embrace left Miles feeling that his father was no longer the hero he had admired throughout his childhood.

When the doorbell rang, Miles opened the door while his father finished dinner. He privately assured his mother that Lisa would never replace her. After greeting Lisa politely and awkwardly returning her hug, he saw Rachel standing behind her.

Miles and Rachel were shocked to discover their parents were dating. Miles explained that they attended school together, concealing his romantic hopes. He feared Rachel would become his stepsister, making a relationship between them impossible.

His father’s familiar greeting to Rachel reminded Miles of his trips to Phoenix before his mother died, raising suspicions of an earlier relationship. Both parents welcomed the teenagers’ acquaintance. Rachel entered sadly, and Miles closed the door, believing they could not fall in love.

Characters

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Miles — narrator, seventeen-year-old male student grieving his mother, protective of her memory and attracted to Rachel, whose connection to his father’s girlfriend leaves him distressed.

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Miles’s father — adult widower dating Lisa less than a year after his wife’s death, seeking his son’s support and civility while his earlier trips to Phoenix provoke suspicion.

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Rachel — teenage female student attending school with Miles, Lisa’s daughter and the girl he hopes to love, visibly shocked and saddened by their parents’ relationship.

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Lisa — adult woman, Rachel’s mother and the new girlfriend of Miles’s father, shorter than Miles’s mother, friendly toward Miles and relieved that the teenagers already know each other.

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Miles’s mother — deceased adult woman whose death occurred less than a year earlier, remembered loyally by her son and described by him as taller and prettier than Lisa.

Quotes

I think the only reason I’m reacting this way is because she can’t. It’s hard to defend your marriage when you’re dead. That’s why I’m doing it for her.

It doesn’t feel like I just hugged the man I’ve had on a pedestal for seventeen years. It feels as though I just hugged my peer.

“I don’t know if this will go anywhere, but I want to give it a shot. Lisa makes me happy. Sometimes moving on is . . . the only way to move on.”

This summary is based on the UK edition of the novel (London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2014).