[3][4] The story follows Mara Valentine, an overachiever high school senior in Brockport, New York headed to Yale University.

Yet she found her life is turned upside down when her sixteen-year-old niece Vivienne, who goes only by her first initial V, comes to live with Mara and her parents.

V’s mother, Mara’s older sister, is a free-spirit who spends her life traveling from place to place, finding new jobs and boyfriends along the way; she is the complete opposite of Mara who has spent her life working hard to succeed in school to please her parents.

[6] The School Library Journal praised the book's romance, stating that Mara's problems with life in general would "have strong appeal for teens grappling with these same questions".

[7] Booklist stated that “by the book's conclusion, Mara is still a virgin and is not a vegan, but her transformation has been entirely credible and, for readers anyway, thoroughly enjoyable”.