69 pages • 2 hours read
Karen M. McManusTwo Can Keep a Secret
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Lingering Effects of Violence
A commonality for most of the characters in Two Can Keep a Secret is their close connection to a violent crime. For many of these characters, the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress and survivor’s guilt have long-term and devastating effects. Sadie Corcoran blames herself for her sister’s disappearance but never articulates her trauma, leading to a strained relationship with her mother, a history of substance abuse, and teenage children who have dealt with the stress of stepping into the role of parent far too often. The fact that she was losing her virginity the night that Sadie disappeared adds to this trauma. For Daisy Kwon, her attraction to Declan at the time of Lacey’s murder makes her feel complicit in a betrayal that can never be undone, and her breakdown and return home are the direct consequences of not dealing with that pain.
These are the most obvious effects, but there are many others: Nana is hyper-protective of the twins while being hesitant to open up around them, for example, and the town as a whole struggles with its image. The book takes a big-picture, psychological view of violent crime, such that solving the mystery and emotional healing are inextricably linked.
The Dichotomy Between High School and the Adult World
The book presents the reader with the two worlds of Echo Ridge: high school, where the danger is less severe, more obvious, and easier to understand, and the adult world, where the danger lurks in secret and has much graver consequences. The way the characters and the action of the book move between these realms is a key part of the book’s plot. Ellery and Malcolm are entering the end of their high school careers, so they are each thinking about what they want to do and be when they grow up, and neither of them have models that provide them with hope. Ellery in particular never envisioned a future for herself, and she has been obsessed with the events of the past, all of which happened at the same high school she now attends. The threats at the beginning of the book are clearly rooted in the world of high school, with their cliché employment of slasher film tropes. Though there is real danger involved, the parts of the book set in the high school world convey a sense that these threats are play-acting or of a piece with more typical bullying.
Brooke’s disappearance changes this sense, and it invites the characters into a much darker, adult world that was always there but was inaccessible to them. Ellery and Malcolm are forced to reckon with what’s going on in the way that Declan, Daisy, and Officer Rodriguez had to five years ago, and the three older characters are still struggling to understand their place as adults, even as the younger characters look to them for guidance and answers. For each of them, the resolution of Brooke’s murder provides catharsis, finally allowing the characters to move beyond what happened to them and step into adulthood.
The Need to Confess Secrets
There are far more than two people keeping a secret in this book. Sometimes, these secrets are insidious, such as Peter Nilsson’s relationships with underage girls or Viv being behind the threats at school. Other times, the secrets are rooted in emotional pain; everything Ellery learns about her aunt Sarah is something that has been hidden from her because her mother and grandmother couldn’t face the loss they are dealing with.
Officer Rodriguez’s secret—that he is the twins’ half-brother—exemplifies the book’s approach to secrets: Once they’re in the open, they can be dealt with, and doing so leads to trust, character growth, and closure. The same is true for Sadie and Ellery’s relationship; as soon as Ellery receives answers from her mother, the distance she’s been feeling begins to fade away, and she starts to truly understand how difficult her mother’s life has been instead of seeing her as a flighty, irresponsible parent.
That clean-cut philosophy is made far murkier by the book’s final revelation, though. When Peter tells Ellery that he intended to kill Sadie, he presents Ellery and the reader with a complicated moral question: Can healing, loving relationships exist with a secret? If Ellery confesses what she knows, the result is likely to be awful. If she holds it in, the result is likely to be a different kind of awful. She’s been put in the same position that caused her to resent her mother, and there’s no longer a clear answer.
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By Karen M. McManus
