Think of the plot as a slow-motion car crash you can see coming from Chapter 1. Widower Joseph Hooper inherits Warings, a gloomy old house, and moves in with his 11-year-old son Edmund. He hires a housekeeper — widow Helena Kingshaw — who arrives with her own 11-year-old son, Charles. From the very first meeting, Edmund makes it brutally clear he doesn't want Charles there, throwing down a note that reads "I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO COME HERE" before the boys have even spoken.

What follows is a summer-long campaign of psychological torment: dead moths, a stuffed crow on Charles' bed, being locked in rooms, lies told to the trusting adults. Meanwhile Mr Hooper and Mrs Kingshaw fall into their own relationship, becoming more oblivious to their sons' war as the book goes on. Charles briefly finds a friend outside this toxic bubble — Fielding, a warm, confident farm boy — but even that gets swallowed up when Edmund muscles in. When the parents announce their marriage and Charles learns he must attend Edmund's boarding school, he sees no escape route left, and drowns himself in the woods.