58 pages • 1 hour read
Ruth WareThe Lying Game
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A 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 33-41Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 33 Summary
Isa still dreams about the sound made by the shovel as they dug Ambrose’s grave. Now, Isa asks herself how they ever thought it would be okay to conceal Ambrose’s death, and marvels at how they have coped since then. Isa remembers Kate telling the girls to return to school that night, so they will not be associated with Ambrose’s death. The next morning, Miss Weatherby surprises Fatima and Isa. She smells alcohol, notices their sandy clothes, and sees that they are hungover. She orders them to her office. Miss Weatherby also summons Thea; she instructs them to say nothing.
Chapter 34 Summary
Miss Weatherby shows the girls a pile of Ambrose’s drawings. In most of the pictures the girls are “naked, or seemed to be” (188). Isa thinks that whoever gave the pictures to Miss Weatherby is trying to destroy Ambrose. Miss Weatherby asks them to explain themselves. Isa wants to tell her that everything was just innocent fun and friendship, but she says nothing. Another teacher enters with contraband from the girls’ rooms: cigarettes, pot, alcohol, and condoms. Miss Weatherby sends them to their rooms. She announces she is taking all the evidence to the headmistress, Miss Armitage, who will call their parents to come get them.
Chapter 35 Summary
The girls leave Salten House within 24 hours. Kate goes home, Fatima joins her parents in Pakistan, Thea goes to a finishing/reform school, and Isa goes to a boarding school in Scotland. Isa writes to Kate, but her friend responds infrequently, mostly describing her financial troubles. Kate sells most of Ambrose’s paintings, and forges more to earn money. Isa hears that Luc disappeared and that Kate lives by herself. On her 16th birthday, Kate reaches her majority and tells the police about Ambrose’s disappearance. Kate thinks the school destroyed the pictures they had, while she destroyed the ones left in the Tide Mill. Isa is not sure she believes Kate.
Chapter 36 Summary
Isa sees the other girls again at her mother’s funeral when she is 18. Riding to the crematorium with her father and brother, she spots her friends waiting for her in the rain. Isa jumps out of the car and rushes to them. She had hoped they would come but was not expecting them. Her father tells the driver to keep going. The four girls hug each other and Isa cries. She appreciates their love, and feels she is “home” (194). The four friends do not get together again for 15 years—when Kate calls them back to Salten.
Chapter 37 Summary
Isa considers the legal consequences of concealing a body and panics about the possibility of losing Freya. Kate insists she never told anyone what they did, but that Luc suspects something. Kate thinks Luc’s anger is “irrational” (196), but Isa thinks his anger makes sense. Isa still sees the boy she loved in the man Luc is now but feels threatened by him. Kate admits that she has been getting ominous messages for years. Kate tells them to leave the next morning to keep up appearances. Isa feels slightly guilty that she has not talked or texted Owen. Isa asks Fatima about forgiveness, and Fatima says that Allah forgives those who show sincere repentance.
Chapter 38 Summary
Fatima urges Kate to leave with her in the morning, saying it is not safe for her alone at Tide Mill. Kate refuses, arguing she must stay, or it will look suspicious. Kate admits that she does not have many friends in the village, and people from town have a grudge against her. They spread a variety of rumors after Ambrose disappeared, including ones that Ambrose sexually abused Kate and the other three girls, and that Luc, or Kate, murdered him. this revelation shocks Isa. She wonders why Kate does not deny all these sick rumors. Kate says she cannot: Since she waited four weeks before reporting Ambrose missing, the rumors have some truth. Isa asserts that all the lies are false.
Chapter 39 Summary
Kate is not comfortable with goodbyes and prepares to take Shadow for a walk. Isa again asks Kate to leave with her, but Kate declines. She confesses that it was great having them visit, saying it felt like yesterday. Isa promises to come back sooner, then realizes awkwardly they might be all back soon if the police need to talk with them. Kate tells Isa and Thea to “be safe” and leaves to walk Shadow. Isa thinks it odd for Kate to wish them to be safe, and thinks that really, Isa should have wished for Kate to be safe.
Chapter 40 Summary
Thea needs money for the ride back so they must stop at the post office to use the ATM. This delay irritates Isa because she knows they will encounter Mary Wren. Mary is surprised that they are leaving so soon. Isa feels as though Mary Wren sees through all their lies. She knows Mary Wren was good friends with Ambrose and wonders why Mary did not stop the nasty village rumors about Kate and Ambrose. Mary comments that Ambrose’s disappearance was suspicious because he loved Kate and would never abandon her. Thea replies that there’s no proof anything else happened, but Mary whispers that her policeman son, Mark, said that the body “might have a name very soon” (213).
Chapter 41 Summary
On the train, and though tired, Isa can’t sleep. She’s annoyed that Thea falls asleep without difficulty. She then feels guilty, realizing that under her tough façade, Thea feels frightened. Isa asks about Thea’s job. Thea has moved around a lot, first on a cruise ship, then in Monte Carlo, but now she is back in London. Unlike Thea, for Isa, the time she spent at Salten was the shortest time she spent anywhere. Isa realizes that she latches onto things that are stable and constant, like Owen and her job. Isa is not sure if she is coping any better than Thea is with her anorexia and alcoholism.
Chapters 33-41 Analysis
Ware adds new complications to the plot, raising the stakes of the women’s deception even higher for Isa. In these chapters, one of the rumors is true: Ambrose did draw nude pictures of the girls and Luc. Isa thinks that whoever sent the pictures to the school wanted to hurt Ambrose—but also to hurt the girls. A new question emerges: Who sent the pictures, and who holds a grudge against the girls? Suspects increase. Isa still fixates on Luc, citing his rational—to her—anger, and what she perceives as his threat to Freya. Isa entertains the idea that the four women “did something worse” (201) to Luc, giving him grounds to hate them. Kate, however, thinks one of the villagers could be the culprit. Isa is suspicious of Kate’s involvement, wondering if she truly destroyed all the pictures.
The consequences of the four women’s lies, and the effect of the walls they built against others, are coming back to haunt them. Someone wants them to pay for their deception. The women are not popular in the village, or with the “old girls” (155) of Salten: They are pariahs, and now they are the objects of others’ false stories. Fifteen years later, the village and school rumors have not abated. Kate knows both groups still use their “names as a salacious cautionary tale” (206). The fact that Mary let the rumors continue confirms her dislike of the girls, and puts her under suspicion of sending the sheep and the note, but would not explain why she sent the pictures to the school, hurting Ambrose.
As Isa’s mental state continues to slowly erode, suggesting that Isa has spent most of her adult life barely holding on to normalcy. She admits that she “lost sight, a long time ago, of what rationality was” (196), and clings to things that offer stability. Like Lady Macbeth, Isa suffers from guilty dreams. She has panic attacks. Between caring for Freya and worry over the discovery of Ambrose’s body, Isa suffers from sleep deprivation and increasing irritability. She fears that her friends are close to cracking under the strain, but really, Isa is displaying the most extreme reaction to the situation. Isa begins to experience choking sensations that block her speech (197). This tightness in her throat represents Isa’s guilt, and will become more prevalent as the novel continues.
Lastly, evidence resurfaces again of Isa preferring her friends over her relationships with her own family and Owen. This choice reveals Isa’s lack of a strong sense of self and is also a drawback of an exclusive friendship like theirs. Without the other girls, Isa’s sense of self is incomplete. Isa’s relationship with Owen takes a backseat to her devotion to Freya and her friends. Isa admits she can hardly remember what Owen looks like—but easily calls up memories of Luc. Owen is a part the “plodding progression” of Isa’s life (216), something she found and stuck with to keep her life normal. Owen is a part of her coping mechanism.
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By Ruth Ware
