59 pages • 1 hour read
Samira AhmedLove, Hate and Other Filters
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A 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.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Ethan Branson remembers a dark, damp basement and a call for volunteers. He raises his hand. Someone says, “You can’t send a boy to do a man’s job” (1).
Seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz lives in the Chicago suburbs with her conservative Indian parents, Asif and Sofia. She would prefer to be at an informal prom party with her friend Violet, but instead she is attending an Indian wedding with her parents. She smiles to please her mother, and she is dressed to please her mother, too, in traditional Indian clothes and high heels. The wedding hall is decorated with marigolds, red carnations, and strings of lights, and Bollywood music plays in the background. Ayesha, the bride, agreed to an arranged marriage, which surprises Maya: “I never imagined her succumbing to an arranged marriage, especially not right out of college” (5). Maya has brought her camcorder to record the wedding. Her father mentions that videography is a good hobby.
Sofia, Maya’s mother, beckons Maya to her table, where Sofia introduces Maya to Kareem, a sophomore engineering student at Princeton. Sofia announces that Maya will attend the University of Chicago next year. Maya feels guilty because she has been accepted by NYU to study film and would prefer to go New York instead of Chicago, but she has not told anyone else except Hina, her mother’s sister. Kareem suggests a walk and offers to help Maya with filming. He deliberately brushes against her arm. Kareem asks if she is coming to the wedding afterparty. Maya explains that she has work the next morning, and Kareem programs his number into her phone. He puts his hand on the small of her back.
Ethan shaves his head, and his hair falls into the sink. He can feel a scar on the back of his head from his father’s belt buckle. He knows he will not see his mother again.
Chapter 2 Summary
Kareem and Maya text each other throughout the weekend. Maya wishes she could be kissed but knows that kissing is not allowed in her culture. On Monday morning, she dresses in skinny jeans and a V-neck sweater; she and Violet go to Batavia High School in Violet’s car. Violet fills Maya in on the details of the party she missed over the weekend. The big news is that Phil and Lisa, a high school couple, had an argument, and Lisa stomped out. Violet suggests to Maya that Phil might now be available for the prom. Maya has feelings for Phil, but she does not consider Phil a romantic possibility; he is the football captain and the homecoming king. Violet wonders why Maya is not more excited about Kareem because he is an Indian, a Muslim, and an Ivy League student. Maya agrees that a relationship Kareem is more attainable and suitable. Violet laughs, saying, “Suitable? […] You sound like your mom” (24). Phil asks Maya to help him with a paper. She says that she will be at the Idle Hour, the bookstore where she works, that evening. Phil says he will drop by. Her director’s mind imagines him in a film shot when he turns to look at her as he walks down the hall.
Ethan stands in a hotel room, sweating. He opens a window for air, and he is aware of trees.
Chapter 3 Summary
Maya leaves a note for her parents saying that she will be back late after work since she will be studying with Violet. She reveals, “It’s a lie. And it’s not my first one either” (29). Phil comes to the Idle Hour. Brian, another classmate, also enters the bookstore. He does not acknowledge Maya and only speaks to Phil, who says, “She has a name, dude. It’s Maya. She goes to our school. She works here. But you know that” (32). Brian turns and leaves. He is reading The American Sniper. Phil and Maya drink coffee, share a piece of chocolate cake, and discuss The Namesake, a book about Indian immigrants that he is reading for an assignment. Their hands touch when Maya reaches for the book. Her phone buzzes with a text message from Kareem, and she feels guilty.
Ethan puts on his black boots with shaking fingers. He takes out an envelope and puts it on the desk. He gets down on his knees, bows his head, and prays.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first three chapters of Love, Hate and Other Filters establish 17-year-old Maya Aziz as the novel’s first-person narrator. They also introduce central conflicts: Maya’s parents’ expectations versus Maya’s personal goals; the difficulty of living between American and Indian cultures; and Maya’s conflicted feelings for two young men, Kareem and Phil. We also meet another important character in short scenes at the end of each chapter: Ethan Branson, a conflicted and desperate soul who has accepted an assignment to commit terrorism. We don’t know much about him other than that he made a decision and is resolved to carry it through. When he shaves his head, it symbolizes his commitment to his new cause and confirms that he’s leaving his old self behind.
Though Maya is a teenage narrator, her voice is world-wise—“I like how he accepts his supporting role and doesn’t try to desi-mansplain things to me” (12)—but also lively and sarcastic—“I’m actually a highly sought after director on this circuit. I specialize in goat sacrifices and masterful film school angles of aunties in muffin tops” (13). Occasionally she is angsty, such as when she thinks about Phil and his girlfriend: “Phil is taken. Extremely. Or is he?” (23). Her voice comes through in narration, dialogue, and texts that she shares with her friends. Like many teenagers, Maya likes hanging out with her friends, dislikes asking her parents for permission, and spends a lot of time thinking about possible romantic relationships. Unlike many American teenagers, however, Maya faces the added pressure and gravity of her parents’ cultural expectations, which include the possibility of an arranged marriage.
Maya’s position caught between two cultures—American and Muslim Indian—is especially apparent in Chapters 1 and 2. The first chapter is full of women wearing saris, Bollywood music, orange marigolds, and attempted matchmaking by Maya’s mother. In Chapter 2, Sofia shouts for Maya to eat breakfast—while Maya dresses in skinny jeans and a V-neck sweater, clothing typical of American high school students. These aesthetic and behavioral contrasts between American and Indian culture set the tone for the conflicting cultural expectations that haunt Maya throughout the novel.
