After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is. Living with her mentally disabled mother who only knows just over twenty words, young Heidi has learned to live in her special world until a new word is suddenly used and repeated by her mother; causing Heidi to think it might be a key to a secret past about which she knows so little....

"When strong-willed, drama-loving eighth grader Brie Hutchens tells a lie because she isn't quite ready to come out to her mother, she must navigate the consequences in her relationships with her family, friends, and faith"--

Ever since her mother left, Maia has struggled with depression, which has only gotten worse since her father remarried; so Maia decides run away to Canada to find her mother, together with Billy, a boy who now lives in a group home and has his own familytragedy--but when they finally arrive in Tadoussac, Quebec, Maia discovers that even her mother has been keeping secrets.

After her sister and songwriting partner, Lea, dies in an automobile accident, seventeen-year-old Rumi is sent to Hawaii with an aunt she barely knows while she and her mother grieve separately.

Told in their separate voices, sixteen year old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy tale existence, and fifteen year old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in whic Told in their separate voices, sixteen year old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy tale existence, and fifteen year old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom....

Thirteen-year-old Shelby and her three sisters must go to live with their respective fathers while their mother, who has trained them to rely on their looks, recovers from a car accident that scarred her face.