In an alternate universe of white suburban America, one nine-year-old girl's childhood is cut short when her parents find her a marital match: a socially-awkward businessman with a ridiculous mustache. Although she surrenders to her mother's housewife training, when the day of the wedding arrives, she tries to escape, endangering her and others in the process.

Two sisters, both Sociology professors, find themselves summering husbandless in their rickety childhood home with their bastion of six children, their ornery mother, and their paralyzed father. They swap between stories of their upbringing and their present task of preparing for a fatal hurricane which will challenge their quaint way of life.

An old woman visits the small town where she was once a waitress and remembers how she dated a wealthy college student and built a strong relationship with his intelligent mother. After realizing she didn't want to marry him, she shared a spontaneous, emotionally-intimate drive with his troubled older half-brother, who died by suicide just after.

A working-class mother has held only one hope for her entire life: that one day, her daughter would marry well and wealthy, and take care of her in her old age. When her daughter reveals that the man she loves is not wealthy, her mother's dreams of rest are dashed and divided.

A family goes into the city to celebrate the sixteenth birthday of one of their sons. The siblings all have new experiences during a city-wide festival, and each finds themselves a bit more grown up by the end of the night.

A teenage girl is swept into the wealthy side of her coastal town by her new boyfriend, but soon finds that she longs for adventure and freedom outside of his superficial social scene.

After losing her mother, a young Chinese American girl in New York City struggles to keep the rest of family together and grapples with the loneliness of being the less-loved daughter.

A middle-aged man and his wife struggle to keep up with their teenage daughter who they just adopted six months ago, especially when she takes interest in a boy her age.

Two women, once the closest of childhood friends, chart diametrically opposite courses through life when scandal drives them apart. Thirty years later, a chance reunion prompts one of them to question everything.

A Jewish mother wants her daughter to marry well and have a better life, but her husband doesn't seem to care. After her other daughter passes away, she realizes she should not hesitate to make bigger sacrifices.