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.

A young girl works to impress her highly critical parents and submits to a terrible fate as she struggles to meet their impossible standards.

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.

A little girl navigates her relationships with two boys in her elementary school class, a brash bully and a shy victim, and learns about the nature of suffering.

A divorced 16 year old girl reflects on how the sexual trauma she experienced as a child perpetuates in her relationships with men throughout her life, forcing herself to grow up too early and leaving her starved for affection and love.

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 sixteen-year-old girl spends a summer reading on a swing, dodging the expectations and pressures from her mother, father, and best friend.

As he witnesses his neighbor being kidnapped, Kyle must make a choice to either defy his strict, overbearing parents or remain silent.

A teenage girl at a boarding school faces expulsion and punishment from her indifferent parents. She gets into an unlikely conversation with the school janitor, who tells her he used to know her mother, and surprises her with what he has to say.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.