Starters

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-25

Chapters 26-30

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 6 Summary

Posing as Helena Winterhill in a teenager’s body, Callie enters Winterhill’s mansion, where she is greeted by a butler. She excuses herself to go to bed and heads upstairs along a hall lined with portraits of Mrs. Winterhill at various stages in life. Callie must open many doors, one of which is to a teenager’s bedroom, and another is locked, until she finds Mrs. Winterhill’s bedroom. Callie is relieved that there’s no Mr. Winterhill.

She borrows Mrs. Winterhill’s computer to look up information about her parents and finds an old photo of them at a party. She goes to sleep and gets ready the next morning in a sensible outfit. She borrows some cash from Ms. Winterhill’s supply and looks at the note Michael gave her: a drawing of her with two different eyes. She likes the drawing and feels Michael really understands her. She finds Mrs. Winterhill’s cards and slips some in her bag. Mrs. Winterhill’s cell receives an ominous zing that warns her not to “do it” (89). She tries to sneak past the maid the next morning but ends up having a delicious breakfast. She finds the garage and tries to leave, but as she does, the doorbell rings. Someone is there to see her: a boy who says they have a date.

Chapter 7 Summary

Callie learns Helena talked to Blake about horses at the bar in Club Rune and consented to go on a date with him. Callie decides to still go on the date, and Eugenia judges her for it. Callie rides with Blake in his red sports car to a private horse ranch north of Malibu. They bond, but Callie feels guilty for lying to him. She also realizes it’s her first date. They ride horses and eat a meal together. Then, she realizes they’re at his house. She learns a little about his family and thinks his great-grandmother is sweet. She also learns his grandfather is a senator. She asks him for a favor: to give Michael and Tyler a wad of cash from Helena’s purse. He agrees but wants to know why later. Callie passes out.

Chapter 8 Summary

When Callie regains control of her body, she wakes up with a gun in Helena’s bedroom. She hears the strange voice in her head again and decides to do some digging. She goes on Helena’s computer and looks through the CamPages, where she finds a listing for the funeral of Helena’s granddaughter, Emma. Callie suddenly understands the teenager’s room in Helena’s house and decides to do some more digging.

She goes to Club Rune in Emma’s clothes with Emma’s car to see if she can draw out anyone who knew Emma. She uses the Madison test to sort out the real teenagers from the Enders posing as teenagers. She bumps into someone named Lauren, whose teen name is Reece. Lauren apparently knows Helena. Callie hangs out with Enders, Briona, Raj, and Lee, and they go to a dangerous cliff-diving spot. Callie realizes that rules the Enders agree to aren’t really enforced.

Chapter 9 Summary

Callie realizes Briona wants to be her friend, so she tries to give Briona her card like she did with Madison. Briona teases her for being old and exchanges contact information by holding up her phone. When Callie reaches into her purse to grab one of the cards, she sees the same amount of money she gave to Blake earlier to give to Michael and Tyler. She calls Blake to figure out what’s up, but the call goes to voicemail.

She meets up with Lauren at a Thai restaurant to learn more about what Helena was planning but must be careful about the way she learns information, since Emma doesn’t know she’s not Helena. She learns that Helena is planning to murder someone. She also finds out why a teenager like Emma would’ve gone to the body bank. Just like Lauren’s grandson, Emma wanted to improve her physical appearance, and since Helena wouldn’t sign off on that kind of surgery for a kid, she took matters into her own hands. Teenagers are dying at the hands of Prime Destinations. After her meeting with Lauren, Callie gets a hold of Blake. She meets him in a park that sparks a memory of her parents fighting about the vaccine. She apologizes for her (Helena’s) behavior and asks Blake to deliver the money again. He agrees and pulls out Michael’s drawing of her. Callie notices Blake is jealous.

Chapter 10 Summary

Callie knows she needs to get rid of Helena’s gun so she can’t go through with her plans to murder someone, so she tosses the gun in the trash at a megamarket. Security notices her suspicious behavior, but she runs away and speeds off in her car. She blacks out behind the wheel going 70 miles per hour. When she awakens again, she’s in the lobby of an office building she doesn’t recognize. She realizes Blake’s grandfather, the senator, works there.

Chapters 6-10 Analysis

Callie, a teenager who has suffered at the hands of Enders, still shows a clear moral compass and an ethical code beyond that which most Starters feel. Rather than hijacking the situation she’s found herself in and using Mrs. Winterhill’s extensive resources the way she feels Helena used her body, Callie is committed to “pay Mrs. Winterhill back out of [her] paycheck” when she borrows Mrs. Winterhill’s money to cover the cost of basics (88). Callie is good and kind to a fault.

While her strict moral compass makes her life more challenging, she will eventually learn that good and evil aren’t always black and white and that she can’t always trust what she believes. Still, it's a rocky road to get there, especially when she finds herself with a gun in her hands. She’s no stranger to weapons and has a specialization in firearms, thanks to the training her father gave her, but she only uses a gun for survival purposes and can’t understand why she’s wielding one in Helena’s bedroom. This sense of uncertainty is punctuated by the litany of questions that starts Chapter 8, and though she doesn’t get answers in that moment, the questions she has fuel her to find them.

Meanwhile, as Callie is trying to adjust to posing as Helena and the gun plot, she is also keenly aware of the class differences between her and those around her, like the rich teens and Enders renting teen bodies. Because she appears wealthy and has access to Helena’s resources, no one knows about her internal crisis. When she meets some rich Enders in teen bodies who want to be friends, one of them, a girl named Briona who is actually Doris from Prime Destinations, “move[s] her purse off the chair and pats it, the way you would for a poodle” (114). Being treated like this only serves to make Callie feel smaller, and Prime Destinations keeps tabs on her. She feels like they have control over her, which makes Callie’s observation about being treated like an animal more accurate.