51 pages • 1 hour read
Freida McFaddenThe Boyfriend
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 53-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 53 Summary
After a restless night, Sydney texts Jake early the next morning. He comes over immediately and is shocked when she asks him to run prints on the bottle. She reluctantly admits that she believes Tom killed Bonnie and that she barely escaped his apartment. Jake is stunned and assures her that he would kill Tom if he ever hurt Sydney. Sydney wonders if he’s changed since their relationship ended. Jake agrees to run the prints.
Chapter 54 Summary: “Before (Tom)”
Tom wonders why Slug is following him, given their years of friendship. He regrets the fact that his only friend turned out to be a killer. Slug argues that Daisy is a problem, given the fact that Allison told her about what she saw. Tom insists that Daisy believes him and that it’s handled. Slug sarcastically suggests that Tom handled Allison in the same way. Tom warns Slug to stay away from Daisy. Slug insists he won’t go to jail for Tom’s mistakes.
Chapter 55 Summary: “Present Day (Sydney)”
A few hours after leaving, Jake calls with news that Tom’s prints match prints found in Bonnie’s apartment and in the apartment of the other victim who was killed in the same way. Sydney is stunned and embarrassed that she was fooled by Tom’s charm and put herself at risk. Jake assures her that Tom fooled everyone, even the police he worked with as a medical examiner. He stations a police car outside her apartment.
Chapter 56 Summary
Sydney attends a yoga class to destress. Her teacher asks about Tom, then reveals he has a threatening, unsettling aura. Sydney is embarrassed that everyone but her knew Tom was a creep. After the class, Jake calls with news that Tom was taken for questioning but has an airtight alibi for both murders. Jake warns Sydney to stay away from him regardless. When Sydney arrives home, Tom is waiting on her front steps.
Chapter 57 Summary: “Before (Tom)”
Tom begins to worry that Slug is going to intercept Daisy before their planned meeting and kill her like he killed Allison. He runs to Daisy’s house but finds her already gone. When he arrives at the Dairy Queen where they agreed to meet, he finds Daisy’s car parked next to Slug’s car and panics. As he searches the parking lot, he finds a body on the ground with a person crouching over it, and fears he’s too late.
Chapter 58 Summary: “Present Day (Sydney)”
Tom explains that he didn’t tell Sydney about Bonnie, because they were never serious and he didn’t want to upset her. When she asks about the burner phone, he attributes it to his fear of commitment. As Sydney considers letting him in, Gretchen and Randy appear, causing Tom to panic and insist Sydney leave with him. Randy intervenes, and Tom leaves. Shortly after, he texts Sydney warning that she is in danger and needs to leave. Sydney blocks his number.
Chapter 59 Summary
Gretchen and Randy invite Sydney to have dinner with them. In the middle of dinner, Randy proposes to Gretchen, who enthusiastically accepts, as Sydney predicted. Sydney excuses herself to the bathroom, and is too embarrassed to interrupt their celebrations when the toilet won’t flush. As she tries to resolve the problem herself, she finds a plastic bag with several locks of hair tied with ribbon taped inside the tank of the toilet.
Chapter 60 Summary
The bag of hair and Randy’s lack of alibi lead her to believe he is the serial killer. Feeling increasingly ill, she makes up an excuse to leave. Gretchen insists that she stays, offering her cake and wine to celebrate. Sydney notices that Randy is asleep. Tom begins pounding at the door, insisting that Gretchen—whom he calls Daisy—let him in. As Sydney’s dizziness grows more dangerous, Gretchen/Daisy opens the door to let Tom in.
Chapter 61 Summary: “Before (Tom)”
Daisy claims that Slug was waiting for her with a knife and that she shot him in self-defense after he admitted to killing Allison and Brandi. After some prompting, Daisy admits that she told Slug to meet her and killed him in order to pin Allison and Brandi’s deaths on him. She reveals that she saw Tom kill his father and killed Allison so that she wouldn’t turn him in. She killed Brandi out of jealousy when Tom kissed her. Tom agrees to keep her secret and support her story but vows never to be with her in order to save himself from becoming like her.
Chapter 62 Summary: “Present Day (Sydney)”
It is revealed that Gretchen—who used the nickname “Daisy” as a child—became friends with Bonnie after learning she was dating Tom and killed her out of jealousy. Tom accuses Gretchen/Daisy of killing every woman he dates, including Bonnie. Daisy argues that Tom could not be happy with anyone except her and that she was only dating Randy to pin the murders on him and protect Tom. She kills Randy to prove her devotion and insists Tom knows they’re meant for each other.
Chapter 63 Summary: “Before (Tom)”
Twenty-six-year-old Tom takes Cindy, his first serious girlfriend since Daisy, to see a horror movie, upsetting her and forcing him to pretend to hate it. Later, Tom reflects on his decision not to pursue surgery. His mother, who suspects him of murdering his father despite police declining to investigate, is relieved. Tom considers calling Daisy, who now goes by her real name, Gretchen, but decides against it. He calls Cindy, but she doesn’t answer.
Chapter 64 Summary: “Present Day (Sydney)”
Police arrive outside the building, and Tom admits that he called the police and told them about Gretchen’s crimes. Gretchen tells him that there is another way out of the building and begs him to run with her, promising that they can start a new life together. She insists that they’ll only be happy together. Tom admits he can’t live without Gretchen, and agrees to leave with her as long as she doesn’t kill Sydney. Gretchen agrees, and they leave. Shortly after, police appear, and Sydney passes out.
Epilogue Summary: “One Month Later (Sydney)”
Despite the fact that Jake is assisting the FBI in their nationwide manhunt for Tom and Gretchen, he insists on spending the evenings with Sydney. She asks him to come over because he wants to, not to protect her, and he agrees. Sydney receives an envelope with a lock of blonde hair and a note from Tom promising that Kevin won’t bother her again. She decides not to show the note to Jake.
Chapter 53-Epilogue Analysis
In the final chapters of the novel, McFadden builds suspense using cliffhanger endings and dramatic irony. In Chapter 58, the author demonstrates Sydney’s personal growth when she decides to cut off contact with Tom despite the fact that Jake does not believe he is the serial killer responsible for Bonnie’s death. Instinctually knowing that she can’t trust Tom, she asserts: “[M]aybe he didn’t kill anyone, but there’s something about him that’s not right” and “[she’d] be an idiot to give him another chance” (314). Despite Tom’s pleas, she blocks his number, telling herself that now she has “nothing to worry about” (317). However, McFadden undermines this growth when Sydney isolates herself with Gretchen and Randy, two characters that she describes as not quite right. Earlier, in Chapter 43, Sydney identifies something unnerving in Gretchen that she can’t “quite put [her] finger on” (243). She’s similarly creeped out by Randy even though she “can’t quite put [her] finger on why” (60). McFadden prioritizes plot logistics when Sydney locks herself in a room with Gretchen and Randy, despite the fact that something about both of them bothers her, facilitating the novel’s climax and bringing the novel’s thematic interest in Cycles of Violence and Neglect in Families to its peak.
McFadden employs dramatic irony to build tension in a similar way in Chapter 63, which features a flashback to Tom’s medical school days. At this late point in the novel, McFadden has already revealed that Gretchen/Daisy has killed at least three of Tom’s girlfriends: Brandi, Bonnie, and an anonymous girlfriend before Bonnie. The chapter features Tom’s first glimmers of hope since the revelation that Gretchen is a killer, as he can finally “imagine settling down with a girl” like his girlfriend Cindy and “getting married, having kids, maybe a dog” (344). Tom’s fanciful vision of his future centers archetypical representations of traditional, heteronormative notions of marriage and family, underscoring the novel’s thematic interest in The Pressure of Social Expectations. McFadden contrasts these hopeful images with the chapter’s conclusion, in which Tom’s calls to Cindy are blocked even though “Cindy always answers her phone” (348). He assures himself that “she’s fine,” asking “what could have happened?” (348). Because the audience knows that Gretchen has a history of killing Tom’s girlfriends, the dramatic irony of this statement helps to build suspense in the novel’s final chapters.
These chapters feature significant character development for both the novel’s protagonists. As a teenager, Tom vows never to kill again after murdering his father, despite his crush Daisy’s obvious love for violence. Tom promises himself that he “won’t let [Daisy] ruin” him and that he’s a “better” person than her (335). This tension between the person Tom believes he can be and the person that he is defines his arc as a character. As an adult, he maintains his vow for several years until reunited with Gretchen/Daisy. Tom eventually accepts Gretchen/Daisy’s argument that “there is nobody else who could possibly understand” him the way she does (351), given their shared history of and fascination with violence. Ultimately, Tom embraces his violent impulses with his personal moral code still intact—killing Kevin on Sydney’s behalf.
Sydney undergoes a similar character transformation in the novel’s epilogue when she allows Tom and Daisy to leave and declines to tell Jake when Tom murders Kevin—a shift that suggests a complicity in and endorsement of Tom’s moral code that condones murder as vigilante justice. Throughout the novel, Sydney’s consistently determined to find Bonnie’s killer and help the investigating detective, her ex-boyfriend Jake, to bring him to justice—which she defines as police arrest and legal retribution. Sydney initially asserts that “the most important thing is getting justice for Bonnie” (78). At the end of the novel, however, she finds herself in a crisis of conscience between reporting Tom’s note because he killed Kevin and “there should be justice for [Kevin’s] murder, just like anyone else’s,” and instinctually feeling that Kevin’s death represents a different kind of justice—one that exists outside of traditional law enforcement (361). She ultimately decides not to report the note, and the novel ends with her trashing it—a final reinforcement of the novel’s thematic interest in Navigating Misogyny and Safety Risks in the Dating World, framing it as a literal fight for survival.
Related Titles
By Freida McFadden
