The numbers are against Lemon: three mothers, one deadbeat dad, one cancer-ridden protege, two friends, one tree-hugging stepbrother and a 60 percent average. So she just can't be bothered trying to fit in. She doesn't care about fashion or television or the mall - she'd rather read Dickens, Tolstoy, the Brontes, and even Jane Austen, though she's a wimp. All around her, the adults are self-centred and the other kids are getting high, pummelling each other in parks and trying to outsex one another. High school is misery, a trial run for an unhappy adulthood of lies and fakery and unfairness, and nothing guidance counsellor Blecher says will convince Lemon otherwise. But making the choice to opt out of sex and violence and cancer and disappointment doesn't mean that these things don't find you. It will be up to Lemon to see if she can survive them with her usual cavalier aplomb.
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