64 pages • 2-hour read
You Killed Me First
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Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: Both the source material and this guide feature depictions of physical and emotional abuse, mental illness, suicidal ideation and self-harm, suicide, substance abuse, anti-LGBTQ+ bias, and profanity. The premise of the source text also perpetuates unfair stereotypes by depicting people with mental health conditions as dangerous.
Prologue Summary: “5 November, Bonfire Night”
On November 5, an unnamed woman wakes up bound and gagged. She is trapped beneath a bonfire. As she struggles to get free, she realizes that she is wearing an earphone that is ringing with an incoming call. She recognizes the caller and pleads to be freed, but the person refuses, stating, “You killed me first” (5).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Margot”
December: 11 Months Before Bonfire Night
Margot watches a new family as they move into the house opposite hers, noticing the expensive car and furniture. She decides to go over and introduce herself and is joined by Anna, one of her neighbors, who is on her way to do the same thing. Margot comments disdainfully on the homemade mince pies that Anna has brought along as a gift. As they both wait at the front door, they are startled by a sudden voice behind them.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Anna”
Anna is struck by the beautiful woman who introduces herself as Liv and confirms that she is their new neighbor. Liv is dismissive of the expensive wine that Margot gives her as a housewarming gift, but she enthusiastically accepts Anna’s mince pies. Liv invites the women inside, and they learn that she has moved from London with her husband, Brandon, and their four-year-old twins. Liv says she used to work in private banking and now intends to open a wellness studio. Anna warms up to Liv, who continues to casually dismiss Margot while expressing enthusiasm over Anna’s homemade jewelry business.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Liv”
Liv privately reflects on her first impressions of Margot. She recognizes the kind of woman Margot is and enjoys diminishing her a bit. When Liv returns from taking a phone call from Brandon, she overhears Margot criticizing Anna for taking a second helping of the mince pie. Liv invites Anna over for a New Year’s Eve party, deliberately embarrassing Margot by only belatedly including her in the invite. However, Liv is sure that Margot will come to the party anyway; she judges that Margot will be unable to resist taking part in the celebration.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Anna”
Anna and her husband, Drew, arrive at Liv’s party. Anna is awed by the lavish affair, and Drew heads straight for the bar. Margot arrives with her husband, Nicu, and their children, Tommy and Frankie. Liv introduces Brandon to the group, and Anna is impressed by his good looks. The women discuss Liv’s plans for the wellness studio. When Margot pokes fun at Anna’s lack of flexibility when she last tried yoga, Liv makes subtly disparaging comments about Margot’s body, suggesting that Margot can get back in shape even though it has been a while since she had children. Anna is privately amused by this comment, as Tommy and Frankie are actually Margot’s step-children.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Margot”
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Liv”
Liv reflects that she might have embarrassed herself by getting emotional in front of Anna and Margot. As the women chat, Anna lets it slip that Margot used to be part of a popular teenage band called the “Party Hard Posse.” When Margot declines to provide more information on the topic, Liv suspects that there must be much more to the story. As the women rejoin the main party, one of Liv’s guests recognizes Margot and makes a reference to the fact that the newspapers once labelled her “The Homewrecker.” Margot walks away from the conversation.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary
An unnamed woman meets with a psychiatrist, and the two discuss the woman’s past suicidal ideation and history of depression. The woman privately remembers that in the moment when she was about to jump, she suddenly heard a voice and moved away from the edge. Now, however, the woman simply tells the psychiatrist that she changed her mind about dying by suicide. Privately, she reflects on the fact that the voice in her head showed her that “it’s not [herself that she needs] to kill” (36).
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Margot”
January: 10 Months Before Bonfire Night
Margot and Frankie argue about Frankie’s choice of footwear. Margot points out that black Crocs are not part of Frankie’s school uniform, and Frankie confronts Margot about her lack of respect for Frankie’s nonbinary identity, which Margot doesn’t understand or accept. As a fuming Frankie leaves the house, Margot reflects that she never wanted kids; she was saddled with Nico’s one- and two-year-olds when they hastily married a decade ago on the advice of damage limitation experts.
Margot receives an envelope from an anonymous sender; it contains a doll effigy of her with the head severed. She puts it in the cupboard that contains similarly anonymous (and ominous) gifts.
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “Liv”
Unable to sleep in the middle of the night, Liv reflects on her journey from a deprived childhood in a northwest England town to the financial success that she later achieved in London. When she first made it to London, she worked numerous dead-end jobs before eventually getting placed as a secretary. A roommate introduced her to the concept of making and selling fetish videos online, which Liv began to do anonymously. The videos did well, allowing Liv to eventually afford a social life. She met Brandon at a dinner for a mutual friend, and the two instantly bonded. Brandon, who was working as personal trainer, was unfazed by Liv’s secret source of income when she eventually revealed it. The two moved in together, and things were going well when Liv became unexpectedly pregnant with the twins.
Now, she reflects on the fact that she has done “a lot more than just making a few sexy videos” (49) to afford their current life.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary: “Margot”
Bored at home, Margot picks up her iPad and responds to messages on an app hidden in a secret folder. She is irritated to discover that she must redownload a number of her favorite apps, which have mysteriously disappeared.
Margot reminisces about her past career, remembering that it ended after a disastrous performance at Glastonbury in which the audience booed the band members and threw bottles of urine at them. The band disbanded shortly afterward, and even Margot’s solo single failed miserably, as it had been aggressively downvoted on YouTube.
Margot spots Liv going over to Anna’s house and decides to join them. On her way out, she finds that the word “murderer” has been painted on the side of her car.
Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary: “Anna”
Anna is surprised to find Margot at her doorstep. As Margot steps inside, Anna notices an envelope addressed to her. Inside is an appointment date set nine months away, but Anna feels unsure about it.
Liv joins the women, and Margot feigns interest in Anna’s jewelry as Liv enthusiastically snaps pictures of the pieces for her friends. Watching Liv’s interest, Margot spontaneously buys a piece.
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary: “Liv”
Liv privately judges Margot—not because of her public past and all the savage things that the press have said about her, but for the way she bullies Anna. One of Liv’s friends messages, asking for some of Anna’s pieces, and Margot hastily returns the one that she purchased from Anna. Liv spontaneously suggests that the trio have a spa weekend. When Anna claims that she cannot afford it, Liv offers to split some vouchers with her.
Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary: “Navya, the First”
Navya (a voice inside an unnamed person’s mind) reflects that she has decided to finally let her child hear her; she will help her child harness hatred, and together, they will avenge Navya’s death, which has left her child without a mother. The names of the guilty have been collected, and Navya decides that they will kill Zain first.
Navya guides her child to the store where Zain works; they stab him to death. However, as Navya and her child clean up the mess afterward, Navya feels herself slipping away, and Zain takes her place in her child’s mind.
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary: “Anna”
February: Nine Months Before Bonfire Night
Anna is stunned by the extravagant spa that Liv takes the women to visit. During the outing, Margot receives frequent phone calls from Nicu, which she declines to answer. She reveals that he and the children are home sick with gastroenteritis, and she wants to avoid them entirely.
Liv pressures Margot into taking the smallest of the three rooms. Later, Margot tells Anna that she doesn’t know why Liv invited Anna at all. Anna chides Margot for always suspecting people of having hidden agendas.
Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary: “Liv”
As Margot gets numerous successive treatments at the spa, Liv and Anna chat together. Liv asks Anna about the dynamic between her and Margot, but she is surprised when Anna downplays Margot’s disparaging comments toward her. As Anna gets up to head to her facial, Liv notices immense scarring on Anna’s thigh, including an old burn mark and cuts that look more recent and too symmetrical to be accidental.
Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary: “Margot”
Margot prepares to leave the spa, annoyed that Nicu has not responded to any of the pictures she has sent him of her now glowing body. At the billing counter, Margot is mortified to discover that Liv’s vouchers are only covering her own and Anna’s treatments; Margot is forced to use three credit cards to pay for her exorbitant bill.
Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary: “Anna”
When Anna returns home, she realizes that Drew has been drinking again. Anna confronts him about his unhealthy relationship with alcohol, and he turns it around on her, revealing his discovery of her stained sheets. Anna worries that Drew will tell her friends about what she really does, convinced that they would no longer want to associate with her.
Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary: “Margot”
Margot arrives home to realize that Nicu has called in his parents for help. Nicu and Margot argue about the amount of money that she has spent in two days’ time. He forbids her from spending another penny until she finds a job, and he threatens to cancel her credit cards until she does.
Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary: “Liv”
Liv is welcomed home warmly by Brandon and the twins. She confesses to Brandon that she didn’t use all her vouchers because she wanted to force Margot to pay her own bill. Liv looks through the messages about her in-progress studio and is dismayed to discover issues that have cropped up that necessitate spending another £20,000. Realizing that she has completely overstretched her family’s finances, she makes plans to blackmail someone for the money.
Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary: “Zain, the Second”
Now a disembodied voice in an unnamed person’s head, Zain watches as his host’s next victim dies; this means that he will leave this body soon. Zain’s host has forced Jenny, who has been recovering from an alcohol addiction, to drink a bottle of vodka laced with ketamine; if Jenny were to refuse, the person would have exposed the truth about Jenny’s past and publicly accused her of murder.
As Jenny loses consciousness, the voice of Zain watches Jenny as she convulses and chokes on her own vomit. After she finally dies, Zain leaves his host’s body, and the voice of Jenny replaces him.
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 20 Analysis
As a psychological thriller, John Marrs’s You Killed Me First employs a nonlinear narrative structure to imbue the initial scenes with suspense, intrigue, and a looming sense of danger. By plunging into a visceral glimpse of the novel’s climax, Marrs goes several steps beyond the usual manifestations of an opening that begins in medias res. Because this particular scene raises endless questions about the players involved, the motivations for such violence, and the event itself, every subsequent scene of the novel is tainted with an ominous sense of dread, and even the most innocuous details of the three women’s early association automatically become suspect.
The mysterious event referred to only as “Bonfire Night” therefore takes on an almost canonical significance, as if every aspect of the three women’s lives leads up to this moment. Even the chapter headings heighten this dramatic effect by counting down to this date, and Marrs further enhances the suspense by alternating between the perspectives of the three unreliable narrators, who each have murky backgrounds and are haunted by the suggestion of something shameful or scandalous. While Margot is a pop star who has fallen from grace, Liv clearly has no qualms about breaking the law to suit her own ends, and although very little is yet known about Anna, her trepidation over Drew’s discovery of the “stained” sheets hints at darker issues in her own life.
Thus, Marrs loosely employs the “mutual suspects” trope to offer up three equally mysterious characters, and he then intersperses the main chapters with enigmatic interludes that further suggest the presence of a sordid mystery hanging over the entire group. As these interludes reveal the existence of fragmented “personas” within an unnamed but murderous person’s mind, the author implies that one of the three women is being featured in these chapters, although her identity yet remains hidden. In this way, the specter of strained mental health also plays a significant role in raising the narrative stakes.
In keeping with the novel’s twists and turns, Marrs quickly introduces his keen focus on The Tension between Appearances and Reality, especially when the three main characters’ first interactions show a barrage of unspoken power dynamics. While Margot makes arrogant, demeaning remarks to Anna and barely manages to disguise her jealousy of Liv’s wealth, Liv presents herself as the very picture of suburban sophistication, and Anna remains meek and docile, expressing awe of Liv and ostensibly failing to catch Margot’s many barbs. However, these seemingly uncomplicated personas each conceal ominous depths, as a series of casually dropped details soon suggests. For example, Liv’s outward presentation belies the fact that she made her money by producing sexually explicit content, and Margot’s silence about her past fame does not fit with her otherwise attention-seeking behavior. Similarly, even the timid Anna clearly hides a darker secret, as is signaled when Liv notices the unexplained scarring on Anna’s leg. By suggesting that each woman hides a scandal of one kind or another, Marrs delivers a sly indictment of the banalities of suburban life, suggesting that this veneer of respectability might be hiding something far more sinister.
Because the narrative strategically alternates between Margot, Anna, and Liv’s perspectives, Marrs maintains an intense focus on the dynamics between these three women, and their underhanded maneuvers hint at The Fragility of Relationships that will come to light in later chapters. Almost immediately, the implicitly hostile tension between Liv and Margot takes center stage, with Liv acting the part of the “rescuer” on the belittled Anna’s behalf. Seeds of bitterness are sown amongst the trio from the start, with Liv unsubtly backing Anna and consistently finding ways to embarrass Margot in public settings. Margot, on the other hand, is so used to dominating Anna that she does not relish losing her position at the top of the social hierarchy. However, while Liv’s support of Anna is initially portrayed as benevolent, her hidden thoughts make it clear that she too is just as guilty of bullying, for her tactics are manipulative and vicious rather than open or direct. She body-shames Margot on more than one occasion and engineers complicated, unpleasant situations for Margot, as when she blindsides Margot at the spa. The dynamics between the trio only grow more complex from this point forward, and these early signs of hostility hint at the much greater conflicts to come.
Thus, as the growing discontent between Liv and Margot becomes intertwined with the seemingly unrelated thread of an anonymous killer who hears the voices of their victims, Marrs hints at the novel’s focus on The Slippery Slope of Violence. The opening scene has already revealed the eventuality of an attempted murder that is motivated by revenge, and elsewhere, an unnamed murderer has already claimed the lives of multiple people to avenge their murdered mother. The idea of revenge therefore runs throughout the story, serving as a connective thread for disparate narratives, and the rising tensions between Margot and Liv will clearly build toward a reckoning in some form.
In support of these ominous themes, Marrs also incorporates several important motifs, the most prominent of which can be found in the title of the book itself. This phrase is first uttered verbatim by the unnamed aggressor in the prologue, and as the novel unfolds, its title will reappear in the midst of events dedicated to the morally dubious cause of revenge. Similarly, the motif of fire first appears with the brief description of the infamous “Bonfire Night,” and Anna’s unexplained burn scars are also highly suggestive of a past accident with fire that will have a profound bearing on the novel’s present events.
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