[1] Eve, the novel's narrator, belongs to a group of children staying at a large, rented estate with their parents for the summer.

The children, mostly disgusted by their parents' hedonistic behavior, spend most of their time on the property of the estate, until a hurricane interrupts their activities.

Millet has said that the novel does not take place in an "alternate world, simply this one" and believes that words such as apocalyptic or dystopian used to describe the book apply equally to contemporary life.

[1] The Wall Street Journal review of the novel focuses on how the novel has humor in the face of a grim plot.

[10] Jonathan Dee, in the same New York Times review, compared the novel's setting to that of Susan Minot's book Monkeys.