When Auden impulsively goes to stay with her father, stepmother, and new baby sister the summer before she starts college, all the trauma of her parents' divorce is revived, even as she is making new friends and having new experiences such as learning to ride a bike and dating.

Eighteen-year-old Lia comes to terms with her best friend's death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder.

Former "bad girl" Cyd Charisse moves to New York City to live with her half-brother Danny while exploring career options and various relationships, including the one with Shrimp, who is surfing in New Zealand.

After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the "wastelands" of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland. So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way....