58 pages • 1 hour read
You Should See Me in a Crown
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.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: "Week Zero"
Chapter 1 Summary
The first chapter of Leah Johnson’s You Should See Me in A Crown introduces the novel’s protagonist, Campbell High School senior, Liz Lighty. Liz, as one of the school’s only Black students, feels out of place amongst her classmates. She is comfortable only when she’s in band practice and is happy to fade into the background. Desperate to escape her hometown of Campbell County, Indiana, Liz eagerly awaits news regarding her scholarship to Pennington College School of Music.
The opening chapter begins with Liz desperately trying to avoid any accidents while she walks to her lunch table across the cafeteria. After an incident where Freddy Brinkley tripped and face-planted into his food went viral on Campbell’s own gossip app called Campbell Confidential, Liz is hyper-aware of her own surroundings. Liz’s anxiety about being seen and having eyes on her is a pervasive theme throughout this chapter. When popular student Derek Lawson begins singing and dancing to ask Liz’s rival, Rachel Collins, to prom, Liz feels ill at the thought of being watched by so many people. The incident gets uploaded to Campbell Confidential by many people around them because prom is an important event to the people of Campbell County.
Liz’s friend group includes Gabi Marino, Britt, and Stone; the former two are interested in seeing who might become the next prom queen. According to them, Rachel is next in line after Emme Chandler recently disappeared. Emme was dating Jordan Jennings, Liz and Gabi’s ex-best friend. Jordan became popular when he started playing football and was quick to abandon his former best friends. Despite how Jordan treated them, Liz still thinks of him, and hopes he is doing well in light of Emme’s disappearance.
Chapter 2 Summary
Liz chats with her band teacher, Mr. K, after a sight-reading quiz. Liz is first chair and is aware that her section was out of tune during the class. With everyone’s attention on prom and Liz’s own anxiety around the Pennington scholarship email, no one was focused on rehearsing. The piece, “Once We Leave This Place” by her favorite band, Kittredge, was arranged by Liz. She gets anxiety at the thought of everyone hearing something so personal to her, but she is also excited by the thought. Mr. K tries to encourage her, as he has done throughout the semester.
Mr. K has been helping Liz prepare for her Pennington application and was even the one who drove her to the audition. Liz has always wanted to join Pennington’s orchestra and has been convinced that it will be the only place that she can be herself. When she finally receives the email from the college rejecting her application for the ten-thousand-dollar scholarship, Liz begins to have a panic attack. Without the scholarship, Liz will not be able to afford to attend the university. All her dreams have been crushed and Liz feels as though she has failed Mr. K and everyone else who has been counting on her.
Chapter 3 Summary
Three days after Liz received the scholarship rejection, she decides to run for prom queen. Robbie, her younger brother, is the one who pushes her to do so. With the title of prom queen comes a scholarship grant of ten thousand dollars. Though Liz is aware that she could take a gap year and work at the nursing home where her granny works to save up more money, or attend another university entirely, Pennington is a fixed point in Liz’s future.
Liz wants to become a doctor and work with sickle cell patients like Liz’s mother and brother. After Liz’s father left them and Liz’s mother passed away from her disease, both Liz and Robbie now live with their grandparents. Liz refuses to let her grandparents find out that she has been rejected from her scholarship. Her grandparents would sell their house in order to help her pay for school, and in doing so, they would all be losing their last connection with Liz’s mother.
Liz’s mother had been a Pennington alumnus, and the school is only a short distance away from home, should Robbie’s health take a turn for the worse. Pennington is perfect for Liz, and she decides that despite the odds against her, she will run for prom queen in order to make her dreams for the future a reality. After Robbie signs on the registration form, Liz has three days to get twenty-nine more signatures of endorsement to become a candidate.
Chapter 4 Summary
Liz waits two days before she tells her friends about her plan. The thought of being center stage still makes Liz uncomfortable, but she knows that without her friends, she will be unable to attend Pennington. Liz works at Melody Music, a store owned by Gabi’s uncle, and is the place where they hang out most often. Despite how close Liz is with her friends, she is uncomfortable asking them for help. The thought of asking Britt for a ride, for example makes her nervous because Liz does not want anyone except Gabi to see her house.
When Liz tells her three friends about the scholarship rejection, they each have different responses. Britt looks ready to fight someone for her, Gabi offers to have her parents’ lawyer call Pennington, and Stone suggests that they do a cleansing ritual on Liz’s clarinet. When all three girls are caught up to speed regarding Liz’s plan to run for prom queen, Gabi takes point on the situation. Interested in fashion and set to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology in the fall, Gabi is ready to dress Liz to fit the part of prom queen. Stone is in charge of running data from Campbell Confidential to find out where Liz stands in the polls. Britt is as enthused as Liz is about having to change out of their comfortable, grunge aesthetic clothing. Gabi takes Liz’s registration form and leaves, happy to take care of the remaining signatures for her. Liz is tasked with calling Gabi later that night in order to plan her outfit for the prom court kickoff meeting the next day.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
In the first section of the novel, “Week Zero,” Leah Johnson immediately introduces themes of otherness and anxiety. There are numerous factors at play that render Liz Lighty, the novel’s protagonist, different from those around her. Liz is Black and poor in a high school that is made up of predominantly white and wealthy students. Liz is desperate to get a scholarship to supplement loans and savings to attend Pennington. Meanwhile the high school offers a cash an award for its prom queen, which underscores how a dominant culture can withhold economic resources from the people who need them most. The money that the town provides for the prom queen circulates within the same wealthy circles, as most students who win tend to come from legacy families, either their siblings or their parents have once won prom queen or king. This symbolizes the way that wealth likewise tends to circulate at the top rungs of society and emphasizes how American capitalism has a tendency of leaving certain groups of people at a disadvantage. The high school setting of the novel thus becomes a microcosm, a smaller reflection of the larger societal forces at play in the world.
The desperation that drives Liz in the narrative is yet another trait that separates her from the other students in her school. Liz’s desire to go to Pennington is not flighty or selfish. Instead, Pennington is the last remaining connection Liz has to her mother. The university, too, is an entirely logical and pragmatic choice. Liz wants to remain close enough to her family in case Robbie, diagnosed with sickle cell anemia, becomes more ill. Furthermore, Liz wants to become a doctor so that she can help people like Robbie.
Liz’s dreams are thus entirely contingent on the people around her; they are formed from her care for her grandparents and Robbie, from wanting to protect and provide for them instead of burdening them. The dreams of the other students in the school do not carry a similar weight. Gabi, Liz’s best friend, has always been in love with fashion and has a passion for designing clothes. Unlike Liz, Gabi has the luxury of dreaming for herself, and not for the others around her. Liz’s anxiety, yet another theme that Johnson refers to throughout the novel, stems from all the responsibilities that she takes on. Liz is aware that her family is not wealthy and is desperate not to burden them with her troubles. Liz stands alone, feeling separate from her family, her friends, and the rest of the town.
Unlock all 58 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: