A high school boy makes a habit of stealing cars, picking up girls, and skipping school. When he begins to worry that he is getting into too much trouble, the boy must decide whether to seek help or continue his criminal lifestyle.

Compiling notes for an English essay, a sixteen-year-old girl recounts her middle-class upbringing, kleptomania, and eventual coercion into prostitution and assisting with drug use. After she suffers violence and abuse, she is eventually rescued — but the experience traumatizes her.

In the mid-20th century, a young white boy comes to understand the complexities of interracial relationships as he witnesses the mix of hostility and affection that members of his mother's side of the family feel towards one of her Black friends from high school.

A Black, southern house servant with internalized racism, joins her mistress on a visit to another region, where she observes Black people acting with something she abhors: autonomy.

In a society where the top one percent rules the lower classes, a teenage girl is forced out of her home by ethnic cleansing and must turn to a wealthy man in order to survive.

A young boy grows up avoiding his abusive mother and idolizing two men in his life: his father and a boy in his class. But when both of his heroes betray him, he turns to his mother for comfort.

A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.

A gay man is rejected by his father and thrown out of his home, which forces him to rebuild his life. Years later, the man realizes that his father was indirectly responsible for his success, and that he is surrounded by many deep and loving relationships.

After spending his adult life under the shadow of his father, a former NSA whistleblower, a man comes to terms with his complicated family history and what he wants for his own future.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.