Sixteen-year-old Marty is spending the summer on the coast of Maine and a good looking local boy, Michael, is trying to get her attention. Marty is afraid Michael will learn that her mother is an alcoholic.
Marie Valpacchio, a high school junior, decides "to thine own self be true" is good advice when she rewrites a play by Shakespeare for English class and realizes that she can't blend into the crowd anymore.
