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 series of interconnected vignettes and characters explores themes of race, incarceration, family, heartbreak, and love.

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.

A man incarcerated for murder navigates his time behind bars and his reintroduction to the world after being released.

A homeless man in the Southern US is accused of a crime he didn't commit. As he goes through the conviction process, he learns about the ugly truths of the American justice system and its need to punish outcasts.

A man, obsessed with a girl twenty-nine years younger than him, is taken to jail for trying to seduce a minor, and wishes he could find a way to help others understand their relationship.

A woman struggles with shaky faith and emotional isolation from her son, which intensify when she goes to see him in prison. After one particularly difficult visit, she faces her fears with her brother’s help.

Torn between the demands of being a mother, keeping a home, and working a job as a prison officer, a woman struggles to make ends meet.

A boy looks back on the encounters he and his friend had with a troubled, violent classmate who murdered his own father.

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.