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 19-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
Maya is in a hospital room, where her parents are upset and worried. The police arrive and ask Maya questions. Brian told the police he and Maya simply “exchanged words” and that Maya was hurt in a fight with Phil (216). Maya protests, insisting her camera has proof of what really happened. Maya returns home with her arm in a sling, but she is supposed to take some time off school. She is in a lot of pain. She calls Phil’s phone and leaves a message, thanking him for helping her.
Sofia tells Maya that she and Asif want to take Maya to and from school every day, and Sofia wants Maya to quit her job. When Sofia says that Asif wants Maya to stay at home while attending a local college instead of going to the University of Chicago, Maya runs to her room and slams the door. Her mother goes back to the clinic. Maya calls her dad and tells him that she will spend the night at Violet’s house.
On television, there is an interview with Charles Richmond, a neighbor of the Branson family when Ethan was a child. Ethan’s dad was often drunk. Once when Ethan was late getting home, his dad locked him out of the house for hours. Someone called the police. Ethan’s dad was angry that the police came, slapped Ethan hard, and tried to assault a police officer. The police arrested Ethan’s father and drove away.
Chapter 20 Summary
Maya bikes to the cottage at the forest preserve. She carries a backpack full of things she might need—sandwiches, her swimsuit, clothes, and toiletries. When she arrives at the cottage, she floats on her back in the pond. She starts to feel nervous. Maya piles firewood on the window sills and pushes Phil’s recliner against the door. The next morning, Maya knows she should go back home, but she does not. She goes to a gas station to restock her food supplies and then returns to the cottage. It is raining, so she takes off her wet clothes and curls up in a sleeping bag. Later she wakes up and goes swimming. She comes back to the cottage to find Phil inside. He asks if she is okay, and then reaches out and embraces her. They kiss. Phil tries to pull her closer but she steps back. Her arm hurts, and Maya realizes she is in her underwear. She asks Phil to turn around while she puts on some dry clothes.
Phil says he should take her home, but Maya asks if they can stay: “Please help me ignore reality a little longer” (234). Phil says that due to Maya’s video, Brian confessed, and Phil is no longer in trouble. He admits that he overheard Brian making nasty jokes and comments. Phil did not tell the football coach like he should have; he blames himself for what happened to Maya. Phil holds Maya close, and they kiss.
Ethan Branson brings home a story he wrote for an English class; he got an A. His mother puts the paper up on the fridge. His dad comes home, drunk. Ethan climbs out his bedroom window.
Chapter 21 Summary
Phil drives Maya to her house. Sofia hugs her and asks why she ran away, but Asif is cold toward her. He makes her explain and apologize to the police. Hina hugs Maya, who says she does not like how her parents project their fears onto her. Hina replies that running away did not help. Hina also suggests that maybe Maya knows what she needs to do in her life but is too frightened to do it: “Isn’t that why you ran away—to clear your head? To figure it all out?” (244). Maya realizes her aunt is right.
A documentary on television says that paper continues to fall from the sky after the bombing in Springfield. One piece of paper bears these words: “From our beginning as a nation, we have admitted to our country and to citizenship immigrants from the diverse lands of the world. We had faith that thereby we would best serve ourselves and mankind” (245).
Chapters 19-21 Analysis
The cottage and pond play an important function in these chapters. Maya seeks refuge there after her parents decide she must live at home and commute to a local college. This setting is also the only place in the novel’s world where Phil and Maya’s first kiss is even possible. Maya does not feel fully herself at school, and she cannot truly be herself at home; Phil cannot be his true self with his friends. The cottage and pond offer seclusion and security. Here, Maya and Phil feel free to be themselves.
The kiss between Maya and Phil is important because the book has been building up to it. When Maya kisses Kareem outside Hina’s house in Chicago, she later imagines that she is kissing Phil; Phil seems to want to kiss her at the end of the swimming lessons; and Maya has wanted to be kissed since Chapter 2. As a work of young adult fiction, Love, Hate and Other Filters explores first love, and Maya’s kiss with Phil is the culmination of her first love quest.
