In a small Alabama town, high school seniors Asa and Ezmita, both with troubled families and dreams of leaving home to attend college, find comfort in their blossoming friendship.

Everybody starts somewhere, and once upon a time Luigi Lemoncello was a twelve-year-old boy in a large family who dreamed of being a showman; he gets his first chance working for a famous barker at a summer carnival where a mysterious puzzle leads him and his friends on a treasure hunt.

When four Mexican-American teenagers from Houston travel to Diamond Park to buy a 1959 Chevy Impala from Magaña's godfather, something goes very wrong, and one of them, Susi, ends up arrested for murder. Convinced that the real killer is a drug trafficker called Anaconda, Flaco and Magaña head to Mexico hunting for him to clear Susi's name--but in the process of kidnapping Anaconda Flaco discovers how little he understands about what really happened...

When her best friend Zoe breaks her arm during a dare, Anna finds herself braving summer camp, and being a counselor-in-training on her own. Being in Zoe's shadow had been comfortable, but now Anna's out in the open, and facing some harsh truths.