Josephine (nicknamed "Josie") Alibrandi, is an Italian-Australian teenager living in Glebe, an inner-west suburb in Sydney, with her mother, Christina Alibrandi. Josie attends a Catholic girls high school where she is disillusioned with the cliques and social politics of her snobby peers. Her usually sophisticated, outspoken demeanour is challenged when she is overcome with the pressures of her senior year of high school: the suicide of her friend, John Barton, and meeting her estranged father, Michael Andretti, who is in Sydney on a business trip. She confides in a young man with a bad reputation, Jacob Coote, and they slowly develop a romantic relationship. This relationship, mirrored by the tumultuous relationship with her father, forms the centre complications of the novel as Josie tries to navigate through the complexities and hurdles she faces as a young adult.
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