Over the summer she reconnects with relatives and friends she hadn't seen in years, and learns more about her past and connects the idea of her mother with the truth.

At 17-years-old, Emma Saylor Payne is stuck with nowhere to go after her summer plans fall through and her father, stepmother, and grandmother are all leaving the country.

It was decided that she would spend the summer up at North Lake; her mother's childhood home, with her cousins, aunts, and maternal grandmother.

[2] A major theme in the book is about the topography of people in the vacation towns, after a trip by Dessen to White Lake and the gentrification of the area inspired her.

Dessen claimed that she was inspired by her concern of a larger showing of younger people in the obituary papers she read and wanted to highlight the "epidemic" of addiction within the United States.