51 pages • 1 hour read
Cecelia AhernFlawed
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A 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 1-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The first chapter is made up of two sentences narrated by the first-person narrator. She describes herself as “a girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white” and directly exhorts the reader to remember that (1).
Chapter 2 Summary
Celestine, the teenage narrator, and her family are getting ready to celebrate Earth Day with a traditional dinner. The North family is made up of Celestine, her mother Summer, her father Cutter, her older sister Juniper, and her younger brother Ewan. A government official and friend of theirs, Judge Bosco Crevan, has sat himself at the head of the table despite not being invited, but Celestine’s parents act graciously toward him due to his position. His son Art, Celestine’s boyfriend, is also present.
Celestine explains that Bosco is the head of the Guild, a committee that regulates moral behavior. The Guild investigates anyone who has been accused of wrongdoing by putting them on trial, which usually results in them being declared Flawed. They are then branded with an “F” on one of five places on their body, depending on their crime.
The Norths and the Crevans are waiting for their neighbors, Bob and Angelina Tinder, to join them. Celestine notices that Summer and Bosco seem uncharacteristically anxious, when they are interrupted by sirens.
Chapter 3 Summary
The sirens announce the arrival of the Whistleblowers, sent by the Guild to collect someone accused of being Flawed. Everyone rushes to the door to check who will be taken and, despite being sure of her family’s moral goodness, Celestine is afraid of the sirens being so close. The Whistleblowers van stops in front of the Tinders’ house.
Chapter 4 Summary
The family watches in disbelief as Angelina Tinder is dragged out of her house. Her husband tries to stop the Whistleblowers from taking her as her children watch in distress. Celestine is shaken by Bob Tinder’s pleas, but she believes Bosco will be able to help.
Chapter 5 Summary
The Norths and the Crevans go back inside to have dinner. Bosco explains that Angelina was accused of being Flawed for accompanying her terminally ill mother to a country where euthanasia is legal. Juniper tries to defend her. Celestine does not understand her sister’s brash, and possibly dangerous, claims about the unfairness of the situation. The conversation becomes tense, until Art defuses the situation with a joke and dinner resumes normally.
Chapter 6 Summary
After dinner, Celestine sneaks out of the house to meet Art at the summit, which overlooks the capital, Humming City, where they live. Art is unsettled that his dad did not even warn Angelina before the Guild took her, and Celestine reassures him that he was only being just. Art good-naturedly agrees, then gives Celestine an anklet that he has had made for her 18th birthday. On the end of the chain, a pendant shows intertwined circles symbolizing harmony and perfection.
Chapter 7 Summary
Celestine, presumably narrating in the future, recalls that her night with Art was the “most” and “last” perfect moment in her life.
Chapter 8 Summary
Celestine shows off her anklet to her family the next morning, but her mother is engrossed in the televised trial of Jimmy Child, a soccer player who cheated on his wife. He has just been declared not Flawed, which is extremely rare. Juniper points out that it must not be a coincidence that a member of the Crevan family owns a share of the soccer team. Summer admonishes her, and Juniper adds that Jimmy’s wife was the one on trial by the media’s scrutiny.
Chapter 9 Summary
Celestine is unable to say hello to Colleen Tinder, Angelina’s daughter, as they run into each other on the way to school. While she and Juniper wait for the bus, Celestine asks Art about Serena Child, realizing that she was essentially depicted as a bad wife to paint Jimmy in a better light. Art responds defensively and Celestine is left a bit unsettled about her beliefs.
Chapter 10 Summary
While on the bus, Celestine notices a Flawed woman sitting on one of the seats reserved for the Flawed. She reflects on what life must be like for someone following a different set of laws, sometimes even from their own family. Art tries to change the subject when she starts asking him questions about people who were found innocent.
Chapters 1-10 Analysis
The first 10 chapters set up crucial background information about Flawed’s dystopian setting. Celestine’s first-person narration introduces the fictional Humming City, set in an unnamed country which resembles a dystopian European or American nation. The tone of the story is light-hearted at first, with straightforward descriptions of Celestine’s daily life. She is hopeful about her future yet naive, which positions her as a somewhat unreliable narrator. Indeed, the epigraph—“FLAWED: faulty, defective, imperfect, blemished, damaged, distorted, unsound, weak, deficient, incomplete, invalid; (of a person) having a weakness in character—” suggests more nuance to the Flawed system than Celestine does (epigraph).
Celestine is naive and confused about Angelina Tinder’s arrest, which foreshadows her dismay when her own world is upended. The inciting incident, which takes place in Chapter 11, creates tension. It is foreshadowed by the young narrator’s privileged position at the beginning of the story and starts off her emotional journey.
The novel begins with the North family preparing for a day of celebration, depicting them as a regular, happy family and pillars of the community. Celestine’s description of her boyfriend Art and his father, Judge Crevan, emphasizes her positive relationship with both of them. She is secure in all her family and social relationships, and seems to enjoy every privilege available to a teenage girl: emotional stability, popularity, and academic success. This sets up the upcoming shift in her social status as a climactic event.
The very first sentence in the story suggests one of the main plot points: “Never trust a man who sits, uninvited, at the head of the table in another man’s home” (2). Although Celestine makes light of her grandfather’s statement about Judge Crevan, her statement highlights the tension between her grandfather and the North family. It also portrays Judge Crevan as an abusive authority figure rather than a friend or an equal, which foreshadows his later hypocrisy and betrayal.
Celestine’s point of view is overly optimistic, hinting at her naivety about the world she lives in. She implies in Chapter 3 that she has never directly experienced the Guild’s oppression: “I’ve always believed that the Flawed are wrong, that the Whistleblowers are on my side, protecting me. But because it is happening on my street, at my front door, that changes. It makes me feel it’s us against them” (10). This foreshadows her growing empathy for the Flawed, and suggests that she implicitly understands that the Guild actively works against them.
The seeds for Celestine’s evolution are planted in the first chapter: “I am a girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white. Remember this” (1). A future version of Celestine seems to narrate this brief introduction, directly addressing the reader. By asking them to “remember this,” Celestine invites the reader to read the story through a particular lens, to apply their own critical understanding to younger Celestine’s naive perspective. In other words, older Celestine warns the reader that the narrator of the story is unreliable (at least at the beginning) and demands the reader use their critical skills to read between the lines.
After witnessing Angelina Tinder’s arrest, Celestine foreshadows her growth by commenting: “I know, deep down, that this evening I have learned something that can never be unlearned. And the part of my world that is altered will never be the same” (14). The conversation that follows between the North family and Judge Crevan makes the latter’s bias evident, especially in contrast to Juniper’s defiance. Celestine is caught in the middle; she seems to side with Judge Crevan because “unlike Juniper, [she understands] rules. There is a line, a moral one” (19). Although her convictions have been shaken, Celestine has not yet started to question the status quo at this point in the story.
However, she soon begins to ask questions that she has never asked before. On the bus, she notices a Flawed woman and “for the first time [wonders] what it’s like for the Flawed to live life in the same world as everybody else whom they love, but under different rules” (38). Celestine’s growing awareness of the Flawed as individuals, rather than an abstract, stigmatized group, solidifies when the old Flawed man gets on the bus in Chapter 11.
