60 pages • 2-hour read
Caught Up
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.
Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of sexual content, graphic violence, bullying, gender and/or transgender discrimination, sexual violence and harassment, rape, cursing, illness or death, and physical and emotional abuse.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Junior”
Nico “Junior” Tocci and his three younger brothers (Alec, Stefan, and Greg) all watch as Tommy Marchetti’s body and car sink into the river. It is Junior’s 29th birthday, and the brothers consider going out to celebrate, but instead, Junior returns his apartment to be alone. Noting the dead look in his brothers’ eyes, Junior thinks about his father, Nico Trocci Sr., who is their boss in the mafia and never gets his hands dirty. After Junior’s cousin, Aly, and her boyfriend, Josh, killed Bradley Bluhm during the events of Lights Out, Junior’s father became more paranoid than ever. (All four brothers usually stay at their parents’ house.)
When Junior was in high school, an as-yet-unspecified conflict occurred between him and Lauren, Tommy Marchetti’s daughter. As a result, Lauren was transferred to a different school, and Tommy beat Junior up. Now, Junior sees Tommy’s death as an opportunity to reunite with Lauren. He goes to his small apartment and goes online to find Lauren’s social media page, where she recently posted a picture of her and Marion Blackwell, a politician whom Lauren convinced to pass legislature in protection of sex workers. Junior goes to Lauren’s Me4U page, where Lauren posts sexually explicit content of herself. Under his anonymous username, NT95, he sends her a request and praises her meeting with Blackwell.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Lauren”
Lauren’s roommate, Ryan, helps her to edit a video that shows her masturbating; the creation of the video was interrupted when Ryan set off the fire alarm. Their other roommate, Taylor, enters Lauren’s room and asks for help in taking a picture for a subscriber. Lauren needs to film a personal video for NT95, her first subscriber, and one with whom she feels a genuine intimacy. NT95 always congratulates her political victories and asks her to be safe. Lauren’s dog, Walter, enters the room, carrying one of Lauren’s whips in his mouth, which causes all three roommates to scatter.
Lauren cooks an Italian dinner for the group and waits for her latest video to upload to Me4U. She posts at least one picture every day and one long-form video each week. She sees her subscribers as her community and enjoys providing entertainment and comfort through sex work. NT95 messages Lauren, and she assures them that they will enjoy the custom video. NT95 again congratulates Lauren for her progress with Councilwoman Blackwell, and Lauren is happy to be one step closer to passing legislation that will allow sex workers to file charges for sexual assault without facing arrest for solicitation. Lauren makes a lot of money from sex work, but advocacy is her real calling. Camerawork is liberating for her. She reflects on the strict, patriarchal, Catholic community in which she was raised and reaffirms her ambition to spend her life advocating for sex workers. Ryan and Taylor join Lauren for dinner, then Lauren’s phone suddenly rings.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Junior”
When Junior returns to his apartment, he has a three-inch gash on his side from a “turf war” encounter. He resents his father for sending him on such a dangerous task, but he cleans the wound and checks Lauren’s Me4U page. Lauren has uploaded the personal video he requested, and he pauses it to examine her face, noting that she does not look sad.
Junior calls his father, who peevishly demands that Junior come home. Junior asks whether Tommy has been reported missing yet. Junior’s father says that the report went out yesterday; he asks if Junior is thinking about Tommy’s “whore daughter.” Junior is infuriated but hides his anger and promises to come home in a few days. Junior then masturbates to the video of Lauren and talks to her through the screen. Junior has studied Lauren’s videos to learn how to please her. He fantasizes about being in the same room with her, and his climax matches hers on the screen. Lauren’s carefree laugh makes Junior wish that he could be happy too. Junior does not have a plan for confronting his father, but he knows that he will end up just like his father if he does not leave the mafia. Junior is determined to see Lauren in person.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Junior”
Junior feels uncomfortable attending Mass. He looks for Lauren, whom he knows is coming with her grandmother, Nonna Bianchi. Junior’s mother, Moira, spots him and calls out to him in her Irish accent. (Moira grew up in Ireland during the Troubles, making bombs for her father.) Junior spots his brother, Alec, in the pew, and they exchange friendly insults. Suddenly, Junior sees Lauren enter with Nonna Bianchi and grows immediately enchanted by her. However, he soon notices that other people are whispering about her.
Lauren is surprised to see Junior there, and he feels an immediate spark when he stares at her. During the service, he finds himself replaying her video in his mind, and as he steals more glances at her, he notices that she seems angry. Junior does not believe that anyone knows the specifics of his family’s involvement with the mafia, aside from the fact that the Trocci family has access to Lorenzo, the head of the organization.
After Mass, Junior and Alec stay with Moira until she leaves, and Alec then orders Junior not to get involved with Lauren. (The narrative reveals that Alec and Lauren were friends from kindergarten until Lauren left the brothers’ high school.) Now, Junior accuses Alec of having a romantic interest in Lauren, but although Alec denies this, Junior grows suspicious when Alec refuses to explain his own attendance at the service. Junior approaches Lauren.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Lauren”
In the bathroom, Lauren takes a moment to herself, irritated at her arousal upon seeing Junior. She wants to leave, but she feels obligated to Nonna Bianchi, who asked her to come to church after Lauren’s father, Tommy, disappeared for the eighth time in her life. Lauren does not expect Junior and Alec to stay long, so she is surprised to find Junior waiting for her outside the bathroom; Alec is standing in a doorway nearby with his back to them. Lauren tries to walk past Junior, but he grabs her and pins her against the wall, then asks her if she has missed him. To stiffen her resolve against him, Lauren reminds herself that Junior abandoned her in high school. Her body arches toward him, but she knees him in the thigh and walks away. When she looks back, Junior is wearing a smug expression. Alec tries to stop Lauren, but she points a taser in his face and returns to Nonna Bianchi. Her grandmother asks her what is wrong and offers to tell Moira about the incident.
After deflecting questions about her father, Lauren leaves church without seeing Alec or Junior again. At home, she tells Ryan and Taylor that Junior was at church. Ryan, who met Lauren after she changed high schools, knows about her past with Junior, but Taylor does not. Lauren offers to tell the story, but before she can, Nonna Bianchi calls to report that someone has slashed the tires of many cars in the church parking lot.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Lauren”
Lauren explains that when she was in high school, she and her friend Kelly worked at a church fundraiser and both developed a crush on Junior even though they had never spoken to him. During the fireworks at the fundraiser, Junior beckoned Lauren into a secluded area, grabbed her, and kissed her. The two started a secret sexual relationship, but Lauren recorded everything in her diary. When Kelly found the diary, the two had a fight, and Kelly posted images of the diary entries on the internet. As a result, Lauren became a social outcast, and Junior denied ever having a relationship with her. After relentless bullying, Nonna Bianchi, who effectively raised Lauren and her sister Kristen, allowed Lauren to change schools. She met Ryan at her new school. Kelly was caught with drugs during her senior year, and Ryan and Taylor agree that this was a fitting punishment. These events took place 10 years ago, and Lauren had not seen Junior until today.
When Lauren tells her roommates about the incident at church, Ryan cautions her against having further contact with Junior. Lauren admits that she was sexually aroused by Junior, but she hopes that another 10 years go by before she sees him again. Taylor suggests that Lauren have hate sex with Junior or at least demand an apology for his abandonment of her. Ryan suggests going out that night to find a romantic interest for Lauren, and the roommates plan their excursion. At one point, Lauren sees a man on a motorcycle across the street, and they nod at each other before he drives away. Lauren has seen the man before but has never seen his face. She notes that she finds motorcycles and masked men sexually arousing.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Junior”
As he sits on his motorcycle outside Lauren’s home, Junior recalls that she is the only person who ever encouraged him to leave the mafia. Junior knows that Lauren’s sex work on Me4U is lucrative, and he is happy for her. Junior’s father texts, stating “Now,” and Junior must abandon his stakeout to go home.
Junior and Alec dig a deep hole in the woods and bury a head-sized box that weighs about 100 pounds. They speculate over the contents of the box; all they know is that their father said to bury it deeper than usual. Junior gets a Me4U notification with a picture of Lauren and an option to tip $20 for another. Junior accepts and receives another image
As the two return to their task, Alec says that Junior ruined Lauren’s life in high school and should not interfere with her now. Junior explains that at the time, he lied and claimed not to have slept with Lauren in order to protect her from being targeted as the girlfriend of a person in the mafia. (Internally, Junior thinks to himself that the real reason for his actions was that Tommy and Junior’s father, Nico Sr., were both violent and were ready to go to war with each other. Even now, Junior hides details about his father from his brothers in order to protect them, and he does not know how to tell them that he wants to leave the mafia.)
Alec accepts Junior’s reasoning, noting that Junior still calls Lauren “Lo,” which is short for Lauren Olivia. Alec offers to finish burying the box himself, and Junior reminds him not to open the box, referring to an event that occurred five years ago. Alec promises. To back up his order, Junior threatens to reveal something that Alec did a year ago if he fails.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
As with many contemporary dark romances, Caught Up alternates between the perspectives of the two lead characters, and Allen often relates the same events from both perspectives in order to provide deeper insights into each protagonist’s thoughts and motivations. For example, Chapter 6 ends with Lauren noticing a man on a motorcycle outside, and the beginning of Chapter 7 reveals that Junior is that man. This juxtaposition of narratives also creates an element of humor and dramatic irony when Lauren considers sleeping with the man on the motorcycle in order to take her mind off Junior. As both characters gradually reveal their innermost thoughts and conflicts, Allen creates a clearer picture of the complex blend of attraction and resistance that encapsulates their current dynamics. A prime example occurs when Lauren questions Junior’s motives for approaching her at church. By this point, the narrative has already revealed that Junior is genuinely trying to reconnect with Lauren in the wake of her father’s death, but Allen’s strategic mentions of the unresolved issues that lie between them clearly foreshadow additional conflict to come.
Lauren’s first scenes reveal key exposition that will drive the majority of the narrative, and the story of the betrayal she suffered in high school is designed to explain her current inability to trust potential romantic partners. When the high-school-aged Junior refused to acknowledge their relationship publicly, Lauren internalized the idea that “if you give people second chances, they’ll only use them to hurt you more” (51). Critically, she assumes that Junior will hurt her again if she makes herself vulnerable to him again. Lauren’s distrustful worldview is grounded in multiple instances of abandonment by those who were meant to love and protect her: namely Junior and her parents. She is therefore wary of opening herself up to additional pain, and this underlying fear conflicts with her visceral attraction to Junior as the novel unfolds.
Warring with Lauren’s ingrained wariness is her steadfast commitment to the importance of sexual expression in both interpersonal and professional situations, and she stolidly advocates for The Need for Empowerment in Sex Work. Professionally, Lauren does camwork, which is a casual term for her choice to record videos of herself performing sex acts, after which she makes them available to her subscribers online. Even before becoming involved sex work, Lauren wrote what she calls “freaky fan fiction” (49) and recorded her fantasies of exploring her sexuality with Junior. Now, when she considers camwork, she openly asserts, “I liked sex. I liked filming myself naked. I liked getting others off” (16), and her confident declaration emphasizes that sexuality and sex work are integral to her sense of self and happiness.
Notably, Lauren also expands her interest in sex work into the political and social realms by campaigning for legislation that protects sex workers. Her goal is to ensure that “the sex workers of this city would be able to report any assaults that were committed against them while working without facing solicitation charges” (15). Even though Lauren does not have sex with her customers, she still sees the importance in protecting sex workers of all backgrounds and professions. As Lauren continues to address the need for empowerment in sex work, Allen introduces contrasting scenes that aptly demonstrate the threats and casual violence that sex workers often face.
Although Lauren, Taylor, and Ryan clearly understand and respect the world of sex work, others characters, like Junior’s father, are convinced that sex work is inherently immoral or disgraceful. For example, Nico Sr. callously asks Junior if he is talking to Tommy’s “whore daughter” (21). Similarly, while Junior is in church, he catches the congregation’s “censuring glances and realize[s] this wasn’t idle church gossip; this had teeth” (32). While both Junior and Lauren come from notably conservative Catholic backgrounds, their community’s disapproval is emblematic of a wider issue, as derogatory terms like “whore” and “slut” are used in many communities to shame women who take charge of their own sexuality and sexual desires. In this context, Caught Up highlights the importance of empowering sex workers by showing the judgmental and unfounded social pressures that often lead to abuse, violence, and ostracization.
Unlock all 60 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs