In modern-day Texas, a teenage boy navigates a world in which teens can take out virtual loans on a whim, big corporations sponsor everything from housing to church services, and consumerism runs rampant. As high school graduation approaches, he grows apart from his girlfriend and family — and becomes increasingly attached to an unsponsored, unbranded, humble little church.

In Seattle, a college student babysits for the family of a man who will later became a tech billionaire. He offers her a job at his start-up, and she declines, a decision she reflects on years later.

In contemporary times, a fifteen-year-old creative writing whiz is sent to a gifted creatives summer camp in Massachusetts, where he meets a young male trombonist. As the two become friends and the writer gets to know the trombonist’s family and their troubles, he turns the trombonist and his dying sister into novel characters. Everything changes when the trombonist discovers the writer’s manuscript.

To face the unendurable boredom of her monotonous bookbinding job, a teenage girl sows sexual tension between her fellow teenage coworkers. However, that endeavor can only entertain her for so long, as her grim small town and secret pregnancy threaten to overwhelm her.

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.

A woman works retail and worries about how to make it as an actress in LA. To remedy her social and financial problems, she bonds with a teenage co-worker and dabbles in sex work, despite her nagging concerns.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

A New Yorker returns to his childhood home with his family and comes to understand family dynamics more acutely when he visits a drug store run by a pharmacist whom he used to terrorize as a child.

To earn enough money for college, a high school graduate takes a grueling factory job. He expects his only takeaway from the work to be a paycheck, but a mysterious coworker teaches him about the world and his place in it.

In New York, a young woman befriends her quirky roommate, who is trying to make it as an actor. While she watches her roommate attempt to accomplish her dreams, the woman reflects on her own life’s direction and what possibilities (or lack of) lie ahead.