63 pages • 2 hours read
Christina LaurenThe Paradise Problem
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.
Chapters 24-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 24 Summary: “Liam”
On the beach, Anna is afraid to sit on the sand and get her dress dirty because she wants to sell the garment when she gets home. Liam begs her to keep the dress because she looks perfect in it. They discuss different perceptions of value and analyze how money affects people’s views. When Anna asks Liam what he could lose that would devastate him, he realizes that he cannot lose the battle with his father. Anna admits that her most cherished possession is her kitchen drawer full of packets of red pepper flakes and Parmesan cheese, because it prompts a memory of the time when she and Vivi accidentally spilled a whole can of cheese in the apartment; this was after Liam moved out. Their digression makes them crave pizza, so they sneak into the kitchen of a remote pavilion.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Anna”
In the kitchen of the pavilion, Anna and Liam have sex. Anna describes the experience as “honest” and the best of her life. Afterward, they think about walking back to the bungalow to sleep, but Anna worries about snakes and other wildlife. Liam teasingly promises to protect her, and she solemnly says that she worries about who will protect him. He points out that she called him Liam instead of West, and he liked it. Anna falls asleep in his arms on the patio.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Liam”
Liam wakes just before dawn and suggests that they walk back to the bungalow before Ray comes by on his morning run. He worries about what will happen to Anna after the trip and thinks to himself, “Please be okay after this” (238). However, he doesn’t know if the thought is for her or himself.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Liam”
Liam and Anna cut themselves off from the wedding party for the next two days. They spend all their time having sex in the bungalow or going on excursions around the island. Anna asks about the terms of his inheritance. He explains that when he started a charity with the annual deposits from his trust, his lawyer checked the legal limits of how Liam could use his money. He discovered that if anyone finds evidence of fraud in the marriages of any of the four Weston siblings, the trust of all four siblings—not just Liam’s—will be revoked. If Ray finds out about Anna and Liam’s sham marriage, he could use it as leverage to force Liam to rejoin the company.
Liam asks Anna about her family, and she reveals that her father was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after Liam moved out of their college apartment. The cancer treatments caused leukemia, and he is now slowly recovering. Because of the complicated healthcare system and the fact that her father was self-employed, she has had to work to cover his bills as well as her own. Liam insists on giving her more money, and Anna agrees to be selfish on behalf of her father’s health. Liam promises to take care of her, no matter what happens between them, but she says that they should take it one day at a time.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Anna”
On the morning of the wedding, the family meets for breakfast. Alex prods Anna with medical jargon, but she ignores him and enjoys the muted chaos of the family as they prepare for the big day. Her manager calls and says that all three of her paintings sold for $1,000 each. Almost immediately, Vivi calls to let her know that her insurance failed to approve the in-home rehabilitation for David. Anna shares the news about her paintings and realizes that between her paintings and the money from her contract with Liam, she will have just enough to cover the costs without insurance.
Back at the breakfast table, the family is discussing the news that the house that Charlie and Kellan have rented for their honeymoon has a burst pipe. Ray gets on the phone, and within a matter of minutes, he announces that he has bought the couple a new house as a “vacation investment” (255); this gift is in addition to the house that the Westons have already given the couple as a wedding gift. As Ray gets up to leave, Ray crashes into a server carrying a full tray of mimosas, causing the drinks to spill all over himself and Janet. Ignoring Liam’s pointed reminder that Ray ran into the woman, not the other way around, Ray quickly gets her fired, asserting that it was her job to be invisible. He tells Liam to make himself available for Ellis from Forbes at the reception; this puts Alex on alert.
Anna is horrified by the casual way in which the Westons spend money and callously dismiss people whom they view as beneath them. She realizes that “[t]his dynamic isn’t kooky and wonderful. This family isn’t a charming group with a few warts. This family is gross” (257).
Chapter 29 Summary: “Liam”
Anna says it’s “gross” that Liam’s family can buy an entire house at a moment’s notice when there are people in the world who must choose between filling prescriptions and buying groceries. Liam apologizes, worried that she will think less of him because of his association with the other Westons. Anna tells him that she sold her paintings, but her victory feels small compared to what she has seen people spend this week. Wanting to protect Anna’s goodness from the corrupt mess that is his family, Liam promises himself that he will get her away from the island as soon as possible.
Liam reflects that even though he knows the scale of his family’s fortune, the excesses of Charlie’s wedding are unbelievable. After the ceremony, as he and Anna dance, Liam nerves himself up to ask her to move in with him, but he is interrupted by Ellis Sikora’s congratulations on beginning the three-year transition into the role of CEO. As Liam struggles to process his father’s announcement, he sees Alex coming across the dance floor. Alex shoves Anna out of the way, and the brothers confront one another. Anna tries to stop them, reminding them that this is Charlie’s wedding.
Despite repeated warnings from Liam, Alex climbs onstage and grabs the microphone. He uses a toast to Charlie and Kellan as a segue to comment on Liam and Anna’s secretive marriage. Jake and Janet beg him to stop, but Alex goes on. He has done his research and reveals everything he knows about Anna: where she lives and works, and the fact that she was recently fired. Judgmental eyes turn Anna’s way. Alex calls her a “scam artist” who only attended the wedding with Liam to ensure that she would get some money. He accuses Liam of conning them all.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Anna”
Anna flees, humiliated. Liam follows, telling her everything he admires about her and admitting that he is well on his way to falling in love with her. He begs her to forget anyone who makes her feel small. Inside, the wedding goes on. When it ends, Liam and Anna return to find the family still reckoning with Alex’s speech. Ray reveals that he has known about Anna and Liam’s lie all along. Liam insists that Alex should be CEO, and they argue until Ray declares that Liam needs to get over the “PISA nonsense” and do what Ray wants. Ray declares that Liam will have to choose between “the company and [the] inheritances, or [his] pride” (278). Anna knows that none of the other siblings grasp the full meaning of the plural “inheritances.”
Anna bursts out furiously that she must be part of a documentary that examines the proletariat in the presence of enormously rich people. She confronts Ray with everything she thinks about him, calling him a “horrifically poisonous” man who manipulates everyone around him. She says that she knows who she is and is proud of it. She cuttingly observes that every person in the room will leave Ray at some point, and he knows it.
Chapters 24-30 Analysis
While the sexual consummation of Anna and Liam’s relationship conforms to the pattern of the standard romance plotline, this development also allows both characters to embrace a new level of honesty in other ways. From this point forward, they become more firmly aligned as a team, and they finally have a candid discussion of the hidden vulnerabilities that the narrative has so far revealed only to the reader. As The Tension Between Romantic and Familial Loyalty increases, Liam realizes that he can trust Anna to carry the secret about the loophole in the inheritance because she has a measure of character and loyalty that he cannot imagine in his own family. This dynamic becomes even clearer to Liam when he learns that David has been fighting cancer for years; in this context, he fully understands Anna’s motivations for accompanying him to the island. She did not simply want a taste of luxury; she desperately needs the money involved because she has “been scraping her bowl just to cover her expenses and [David’s]. And she’s twenty-five” (247). Likewise, having seen the disastrous dynamics of the Weston family, Anna now recognizes why Liam is always so serious, and she finally understands how far he will go to protect those he loves. Realizing that she is now on that list, she finds a new sense of security, both characters feel more at ease to know that they can share their burdens with one another.
Despite this substantial progression in the protagonists’ relationship, The Societal Impact of Class Differences becomes cruelly prominent during the family breakfast, and Anna’s happiness is clouded when she realizes the moral corruption and outright ugliness that lies beneath the family’s polished veneer. In particular, Ray’s callous actions emphasize the societal impacts of wealth and the extent to which money and position endow people with a corruptive level of power. As Ray himself demonstrates, he can ruin a server’s life just as easily as he can save his daughter’s honeymoon, and he does both in the same five-minute span. Even more significant is each family member’s reaction when Ray summarily has the server fired for his own mistake, for the various reactions are designed to illustrate each person’s priorities and position within the family. For example, Janet stalks off to repair her appearance, while Blaire and Reagan leave the table. Jake, on the other hand, merely makes a joke before returning to his breakfast, and the rest of his siblings remain silent in the face of Ray’s tirade. Only Liam and Anna stand up to the Weston patriarch, and this decision highlights their rejection of his worldview as they refuse to acknowledge his power. When Anna tells him, “Whatever you’re paying, it isn’t enough for you to treat a waitress like that” (257), she is declaring that money is no substitute for basic human decency.
The wide gulf between Anna’s values and those of the Weston family becomes even more apparent given that Anna has just decided to use the proceeds from her paintings and from the wedding trip to pay for her father’s in-home rehabilitation. Faced with the sharp contrast between her own actions and those of the Westons, Anna experiences a moment of clarity that allows her to elucidate the pitfalls of being in the proximity of such excessive wealth. As she muses:
Everything about this experience is seductive—the island, the food, the parties, the spa, these clothes. But is it worth it? [...] I don’t think so. I feel like I lost some innocence here that maybe I shouldn’t have held on to, but even if it made me naïve, I’ll miss it. I wish I could still believe somewhere inside me that terrible rich people like this didn’t actually exist. That they didn’t view people like my father and me with such disdain. They would have gotten along swimmingly with my mother (260).
These complex thoughts vividly illustrate The Societal Impact of Class Differences on a grand scale even as Anna takes a personal approach by connecting herself and her father with Thuy, the server; her reflections reveal that just like Thuy, she and David are both people who Ray believes should remain “invisible.” Likewise, she acknowledges the dysfunction in her own family’s past when she realizes that such “invisible” people would also have been rejected by her mother. Now, as she grapples with her disgust over the cruel social display she has just witnessed, she also rejects the sort of life that her mother once chased. Even more importantly, her words have a galvanizing effect on Liam, who becomes more determined than ever to protect her from his family’s corruption. Ray’s treatment of Thuy signals what he is willing to do to Anna if she ever dares to stand in his way. Ironically, as the climax of the novel is revealed, it will ultimately be Anna who protects Liam.
The climax of the novel arrives on the day of the wedding, and with this approach, the authors build a sense of irony through juxtaposition, for the celebration of Charlie’s marriage is paired with the condemnation of Liam’s, even as Charlie’s ability to claim her inheritance is contrasted with the possibility of its sudden loss. Additionally, Alex’s dogged determination to be CEO throws Liam’s rejection of the role into sharp relief. As with Ray’s actions at breakfast, the wedding emphasizes the extent to which wealth governs everything that the Westons do. Thus, when Liam remarks that “[w]eddings are supposed to be celebratory and grandiose, but this is bordering on grotesque” (263), he is conveying his and Anna’s growing disgust with the underlying spirit of the proceedings.
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